


Snow Black

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Snow White AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-04-12 09:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19129372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sirius Black - more commonly known as Snow Black - is forced to run away from home when his father attempts to have him killed. What he doesn't expect is to get caught up in a scheme to steal the crown from none other than Prince Lupin himself.





	1. Chapter 1

“We have to do something about him, Walburga. We’ve waited long enough.”

A flame flickered to life between his fingertips. It was a familiar light, the same one that Sirius could always see wavering through the grimy windows, a trail of smoke flowing from the end. Except this time, Orion wasn’t lighting a cigarette.

The lighter illuminated their family tree. It was ugly and twining, casting leaves over the walls and branching around an ornate mirror in the middle. The mirror had been added in years ago, the painting reworked, and it had left some sections of the tree slightly more discolored than the rest.

“Get Snape to do away with him, then,” Walburga said, less than indifferent. Sirius barely registered the words, barely understood that they were talking about him. About doing away with him.

Snape was the apothecary, self proclaimed potioneer, the strange man who crouched in corners and mixed up suspiciously colored cocktails that burned as they trailed down your throat. Harsh, gritting as sand, dripping with grease. He’d worked for them for as long as Sirius could remember, and he stayed away if he could help it.

“How will we explain it?”

“A tragic accident,” Walburga waved a hand, as though it wasn’t a big deal. “You know how Sirius is, always getting into trouble and the like. It’s not a huge leap of the imagination that he went and offed himself somehow.”

Orion smiled, his chin quivering as he did so, distorting his scarily beautiful face in a weird way — not ugly, but sharper, with a smile that reached to his eyes and beyond. Like he took full pleasure in the thought of getting rid of Sirius.

“Right then,” he said. “Tell Snape to prepare. Poison is easiest.”

Walburga vanished out the back exit quick as a snake, leaving only Orion and his lighter. Sirius peered in from the crack in the door, unseen. He already knew what was about to happen. He’d seen it done before, with Andromeda, with various other people who disgraced the family line or got on Orion’s bad side.

Sirius had always known his time would come eventually, so he merely watched as Orion pressed the lighter against the family tree, letting the fire char Sirius’s name until it was nothing more than a blackened circle. Maybe he should have felt something, some sporadic twinge of emotion, some sadness or anger. Anything. But there was only emptiness, as though the blackened hole where his name used to be had spread to his heart.

Orion was back to staring at the mirror now, settling down in front of it like he so often did and taking in his reflection with rapt attention. Sirius watched him for a second, the duality of him and his reflected self staring at each other in a never ending loop. Then he let the door slide shut with a quiet snick, and he knew it wouldn’t be heard. Orion was too absorbed in his own image to take in any of his surroundings. He always had been.

When Sirius was younger, he used to sit with his ear pressed against the door and listen to Orion talk with his mirrored self. He would mutter to himself about his plots and schemes, ideas shared with his reflection in passionate whispers. Passionate, about Sirius’s death. Passionate, about his own beauty.

The smell of smoke filled Sirius’s nostrils, drawing him back to his senses — to the new black hole in the tree, to the threat and his imminent death.

There was something different about this time. Orion had threatened to murder him often enough, in the dark corners of staircases, or screaming it to his face in the middle of the night, but those times, it had only been words. This time — this time, it was a plan.

He walked up to his room, not bothering to run, because it took more than a death threat to work him into a panic these days. He already had a bag packed; he always had, stuffed in the bottom of his closet. It took not a moment for him to sling the bag over his shoulder like he’d considered doing a million times before.

Things were moving too fast, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. He wanted to be furious and terrified, to scream and cry and panic. He’d imagined this moment a million times and thought that he’d never be able to work up the courage to run, but now that he’d decided to leave, it was oddly easy. All he had to do was pick up the bag and walk.

So walk he did.

The driveway leading away from mansion felt far too vulnerable, like there was somebody lurking at every window and staring out at him. He couldn’t even check, because they were splattered with dirt, despite their wealth.

He was only a few minutes down the road when he heard footsteps beating behind him. They were growing louder and faster, and he couldn’t bring himself to look because listening was bad enough. He knew from the noise that it wasn’t Orion — his steps were heavier, like when they pounded up the stairs, shaking the entire house in his effort to find Sirius and scream at him in a crashing rage. It couldn’t be Walburga either, because she never ran.

Finally, when the noise was too unbearable to ignore, Sirius turned. And he promptly coming face to face with none other than Regulus, sword sheathed at his hip.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sirius hissed, assessing Regulus’s predatory stance.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Regulus bit back, hand straying to the sword on his hip. The hilt glinted in the dying sun, reflecting the Black Family Insignia back at him with a mocking flare.

“I’m getting away because Orion wants to kill me again.” Sirius said shortly. He hiked the bag up on his shoulder, itching to bolt. The longer he stayed, the more light he lost, and the less of a head start he had. He paused. “This time, he actually means to do it, apparently. It’s not just empty words anymore, Regulus. They want to kill me. They’ve planned it.” There it was, the long overdue panic that he’d somehow kept at bay while he left the house. He sounded frantic, even to his own ears.

“I know,” Regulus said simply, hand not moving from where it rested against the sword.

“I have to get away before he realizes I’ve gone.”

“He already knows,” Regulus said, voice strangely even. Deadpanned.

“Fuck,” Sirius cursed, and he turned to make his leave. “I have to go. Thanks for the warning.”

He didn’t get more than two feet before he felt Regulus’s grip, as strong as that of his father’s. It ran in the family apparently. He held on like a vice, staying Sirius in his path.

“He sent me,” Regulus said calmly. Sirius noticed his other hand close tighter around the sword.

“Sent you?” Sirius asked, eyeing the weapon in a disbelief and a sneaking suspicion that he didn’t want to examine.

“It’s my job,” Regulus said simply. “You ran before Snape could get to you, and Orion wants you dead. I’m training to be an assassin. It’s what I do.” He pulled the sword out with a long grating sound, one that rang far too much with the woods damping all other sound. He was still clutching Sirius’s arm, tight enough to bruise. Sirius knew exactly how much pressure it took to bruise from firsthand experience.

“You’re my brother,” Sirius whispered. “I protected you from him. From them.”

“I have to uphold the Black family honor,” Regulus replied. “It isn’t my choice.”

“That’s bullshit,” Sirius spat, trying to ignore the white of Regulus’s knuckles, as tight on the sword as on his arm. “You and I both know it. Run away with me.” He hated the begging tone that had crept into his voice, because he was supposed to be taking charge — the ever steady older brother, not the helpless boy at swordpoint.

“He’s my father,” Regulus insisted. “I’m not leaving. I have a job to do.”

“He’s fucking insane. He’s trying to kill me, Regulus, and if you don’t watch out —” But he could tell the words were lost on Regulus, because had his blocks in place. His opinion wouldn’t change no matter how much Sirius argued. “You know what? Fine. You can go running back to him and his messed up ideals, but you can’t kill me.”

“Why not?” He drew the sword further back, twisting it slightly. Sirius tensed, and even that slight movement made his arm throb. Regulus clutched at him tighter.

“Reg,” Sirius said, the old nickname slipping out before he could shove it back down his throat. Regulus’s face twisted painfully at the word, and Sirius felt a vindictive pleasure mixed with sadness. “I’ll run away, and he’ll never see me again. Tell him you killed me. Make it convincing. He won’t know the difference.”

Regulus didn’t move.

“You bloody idiot. You owe this to me a million times. It’s the least you can do. You aren’t like the rest of them.”

Regulus squeezed his arm tighter, twisting in such a way that the skin felt like it was being torn apart, even as it held. The he pushed Sirius away from him, and Sirius stumbled, tripping over rocks and vines that littered the forest floor.

“Get lost,” Regulus snarled, sheathing the sword, and with it his pride. “Never show your face here again, understand?”

Sirius grinned at him, and thanked whoever was listening that his voice didn’t falter. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t be back.”


	2. Chapter 2

He’d been walking for hours. His legs were sore, the muscles stretched as tight as his nerves, elastic bands trying to make his legs stop. He had no clue where he was going or what he was doing. All he knew was that if he stopped walking now it would be a while before he started again.

He had no idea how much time was passing either, because even though he could watch the setting sun, it meant nothing to him. Did the sun take minutes to set? Hours? He’d never had a reason to learn, until now. So he had no clue how long it had been when he heard a crackling fire from in front of him.

"You can't keep risking us, Marls,” a voice came, floating over the trees. “We've survived like this for long enough, yeah? We can keep up the stealing without you planning all your big heists.”

There was a frustrated noise, barely audible over the lively fire. "It's barely a risk. I'm good at it, you know that. I've never been caught."

"You’ve come pretty damn close."

Sirius knew that standing here and listening to the idle chatter of a group of strangers was getting him nowhere. He had nobody else to go to. It was now or never, really.

He approached the sprawling campsite, wishing he could hide from the noise of the leaves crunching dead underfoot, but no matter how much he tiptoed they rang out against the silence. Sirius hated the forest. The way the trees twisted wherever they pleased and he couldn’t control it, the way he couldn’t stop the forest alerting everyone to his presence.

They were waiting for him, a group of dirt-covered faces, eager and alive in a way that Sirius never had never truly seen.

“Well, well, well. Look who it is,” a redhead girl snorted, looking him up and down appraisingly. She looked less surprised than he’d expected, given that a stranger had just walked in on their camp. “I must admit, I never thought I’d meet you. Especially not in our hovel. What a miracle this is, Snow Black.“

"That’s not my name,” Sirius muttered. He resented the way they all relaxed when they realized who he was, as though his presence wasn’t a threat in the slightest. He hated being taken as a joke, even though jokes were his go-to defense mechanism.

“Isn’t it?” A boy was speaking this time. He was throwing a ball in the air and catching it one handed, occasionally glancing sidelong at the redhead. “Prettiest man in all of England, aren’t you? What are you doing here in our lowly camp?”

Sirius wasn't about to give anything away. "Who are you?"

"Now, now, darling. You aren't really the one with the upper hand here, are you? I think you owe us a little more than that." Sirius squinted at the girl talking. Her head was completely shaved bald, and her clothes were torn and dirtied like the rest.

There were about eight of them in total, standing in a foreboding semicircle, the kind that could slowly close and encircle him if they wanted to. As it was, Sirius didn't particularly want to take any chances.

“It seems like you already know who I am," Sirius frowned, glancing uneasily around the circle. "You said it before."

"Snow Black, aye. You've done us a right favor, you have."

"It's true," the boy with the ball pitched in. "They talk about you all the time."

"Aye, don't they?" Back to the bald girl this time, grinning and carrying on conversationally. “The nobles will prattle on about you for hours.You’re a great distraction. They love you so much that they've got no idea when we pick their pockets.“

"But if they do notice, we have other means," the boy cut back in with a final toss of the ball, and he ran a hand through his hair ragged hair. "Less harmless."

“Ah, shut up Prongs." It was another boy this time, poking at the fire. "No need to give him a heart attack. Looks like he's been through his fair share already, this one."

"I'm here, you know. You can stop talking about me like I don't exist,” Sirius said, feeling disgruntled.

"Feisty, aren't you? I like 'im, Wormy. Maybe we should keep him.”

"You ever gonna tell us why you're here, Snow Black?"

“My name isn’t Snow Black," Sirius muttered under his breath, but he knew it was a losing battle. That’s what everybody knew him as, anyways. Sir Black and his son, Snow Black. “I’m here because I ran away from home and I have nowhere to go."

It probably wasn't a good idea, opening up his hand of cards like that and revealing how entirely vulnerable he was, but exhaustion was starting to overtake him and the fire looked far too inviting.

"Are you talking real, now? The famous Snow Black, beauty and love of everyone's life, son of the fairest Sir Black? You ran away from home?

“Sir Black was a lunatic who wanted to murder me," Sirius said shortly.

“Why’d he want to do that?”

Sirius shuddered, thinking back to the incident that had set off Orion’s latest episode. He’d already been unstable, finding solace in alcohol and mirrors. It had been building for a while, but the market had been his breaking point.

It had been an offhand comment from a passing stranger — “Your son is growing up to be even handsomer than you, Sir Black!”

Any other father would have beamed proudly, and Orion faked it like he always did. But Sirius saw the signs. The bristle in his posture, the sharp anger in his step, the warning flashing in his pupils, the clench of his fists.

Orion was beautiful, there was no denying it. He’d always been known for it, valiantly handsome, but from the moment Sirius was born it had turned into a competition.

When Sirius was born, he was widely renowned for his looks, earning him the nickname “Snow Black,” which he’d had his whole life. Skin as fair as snow, and a family as prestigious as the Blacks. It was a deadly combination, one that made Orion feel like he would soon be lurking in Sirius’s shadow.

Orion hated being in the shadow.

Whenever he commented on Sirius’s beauty, it was in threatening tones. When people on the street had lauded over his long hair, Orion had taken it in his fist and cut it off with a kitchen knife, dressed him in torn clothes, and told him he would never grow up to be the most beautiful.

“It’s complicated,” Sirius said slowly, snapping back into the moment and not willing to be that vulnerable. “Look, can I stay here or not?"

"Stay with us?" another boy snorted. "You've got no idea what this life is like, after being shut up and pampered your whole life."

"I told you my Father is a raving lunatic, didn't I?" Sirius frowned.

“We’ve got no parents,” the redhead said. She seemed to be the leader of their group. "Us, we've got each other."

"We've not got food in a couple of days," the little rat-like boy squeaked. "It ain't easy, like. Living out here."

“How do you get food?” Sirius asked, only realizing how naïve the question sounded after he’d spoken.

"Steal it, don't we? You know anything about robbing, Snow Black?"

If there was a time to bluff, now was it. “Of course,” Sirius said. "I can steal."

The girl sitting beside the bald one laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulders. It was disheveled, tangled and filled with leaves. "You keep telling yourself that, darling. You want to join us, yeah? Why would we want you?"

"I said, I can steal," Sirius insisted.

“Yeah, you're a shit liar," the one called Wormy muttered. "Look, we don't need another mouth to feed, and you ain't getting us anything, see?"

"What can I do?" Sirius asked immediately. "What can I do to prove it to you?"

They just stared at him blankly, and Sirius sighed in frustration. “Where is this, anyways?” he asked, looking around him. There were trees on all sides, which made sense, considering it was a forest.

“About a mile away from the Lupin castle.”

“Why do you live around the castle?” Sirius asked curiously. “Isn’t it more likely that you’ll get caught?”

“We don’t live anywhere,” James snorted.

“Aye, but we hang ‘round the castle because of all the travelers.”

“Rich travelers.”

“Rich, gullible travelers.”

“Blinded by their wealth.”

“They never see it coming when we empty out their wallet,” Lily said, rolling her eyes. “They’re idiots, the lot of them.”

“You sneak up behind them, compliment them, grab their money, and they leave none the wiser.”

They spoke with a kind of fluency, cutting each other off and weaving their words together as though they could predict exactly what the others were going to say before they spoke. It seemed so simple, compared to the stilted family dinners Sirius was used to.

“Don’t look so shocked, Snow Black. It’s how we live, yeah? It’s hard to have morals when you’re constantly trying to stay alive.”

“I could live like that,” Sirius said automatically, imploring them to listen. “Let me prove it to you.”

“How?”

“I’ll steal something,” Sirius said, casting around for anything to grasp on to. “From the castle,” he heard himself saying, before the rashness of that idea caught up to him. “I can pretend to be some royal person or another.”

“But you look a right mess,” Prongs sniggered, letting his eyes trail over Sirius without bothering to hide it. “Definitely not nobility.” Despite Sirius’s beauty, the uneven hair and mussed clothes didn’t do flattering things to him.

“Besides, if you really did run off, it’s probably gotten around by now,” the redhead cut in. “Your father will put out a head search for you.”

Sirius tried not to think about that, because if he was found out, his fate was pretty much inevitable. Set in stone. Now Orion had a real reason to kill him - treason, betrayal, running away from his family.

“And,” another girl piped up, “Stealing from the castle is nothing. Marlene’s done that a million times,” she said, gesturing to the blond. “We all have.”

"Aye, I’ll up you one,” the bald girl perked up. “You really think you’re up to this? Steal the prince’s crown. You do that, and you’re in.”

Sirius stared at them. What was he doing here, surrounded by a group of vagabonds who he didn’t know, offering to steal the prince’s crown so he’d have a place to stay and food to eat? There had to be easier ways to go about this whole running away. This had been a mistake.

“Too much, Snow Black?” she grinned, evidently seeing his defeated posture, or maybe catching the wavering uncertainty in his eyes.

Sirius almost conceded, almost gave up and left, until he imagined Orion’s expression if he could see Sirius now. The disappointment, the horror and shock on his face when he saw the circle of tramps and the neatly kempt fire.

And that — that was enough to change his mind.

“No,” Sirius straightened up, setting his face and hunching his shoulders. “I’m going to get into that castle and steal that crown if it’s the last thing I do.

“From what we’ve seen of you,” the rat-boy sniggered, “It probably will be.”


	3. Chapter 3

Remus heaved a sigh, hating the weight of the fabric against his shoulders, scratchy and all too familiar. It was a fabric weaved with the burden of his position, wearing him away hour by hour, minute by minute, handshake by handshake.

“Can I get you anything else, sir?” His servant, Kreacher, was bowing low. Remus didn’t even bother trying to tell him to lay off. They liked to bow, to have someone to serve and answer to, because then they didn’t have to think for themselves or deal with sorting out their loyalties. Remus envied them and their easy rite of following orders.

“If you could cancel the Ball, that’d be great,” Remus muttered, rolling his eyes at the wall and envying the wall too. Stone didn’t have to feel, didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to be Prince.

The servant looked up at him, eyes blown wide with panicked. “Sir, you know I can’t —”

“Calm down,” Remus sighed. “It was a joke.” His parents hated when he joked, because they said his duty was too serious and a joke would shatter that stability.

“Yes sir,” the servant said, bowing again and quickly exiting the room, well practiced in the art of walking backwards.

Remus sat down on the bed. The silk sheets clung to him, trying to pull him in, and Remus wanted nothing more than to let them envelop him in a veil. He hated how much he hated his life. He had everything anybody could ever want. He was Prince, for god’s sake — loved by the people, revered by other kingdoms. Yet here he was complaining about fancy robes and servants, silk sheets and wealth. The familiar feeling of all-consuming guilt rushed over him again.

Learn to be grateful, his parents would tell him. There are people starving. People living in war-torn countries. People, people, people. Worse, worse, worse.

But he still hated it. He hated the vanilla invitation sitting on his dresser, written with perfect script that he’d practiced for hours. He hated the draping robes and fancy dresses, the crowns and etiquette, the veiled threats and cryptic conversations. He hated the endless rules ingrained in his brain, the inflections you had to decipher when a royal spoke.

For once, he wanted to run and scream and break free from diplomacy and politics. He wanted to roll in the dirt and play outside, to be free from the burden that his existence had become.

And yet, he didn’t have the liberty of making that choice. He had a responsibility. So he waited at the top of the stairs as rehearsed, watching the guests filter in and listening to their conversations from the shadows.

“Remember,” came a voice from behind him, along with a hand on his shoulder. “The eligible ladies will be in attendance today, and you’re expected to —”

“I know,” Remus said sharply. He dismissed the servant with a wave of his hand, staring down the banister. He didn’t need to hear more about the marriage. He’d been pestered more than enough already.

He refocused on the dim lights of the dancefloor, already filled with people mulling about. It appeared there was some tumult going on at the door, a flurry of motion that he couldn’t quite make out in the dark.

“You’re really going to turn me out because I lost my invitation?” came a voice, loud and brash, completely unfamiliar. Remus frowned. It wasn’t the voice of a fellow nobleman.

“Who are you?” The formal clanking of armour accompanied the question, knights waiting to check invitations at the door. “Lift your hood so we can verify your identity.”

“Don’t tell me what to do! You should be ashamed, demanding things like that from a person such as me.” His voice was sharp, crisp. “I’m here on special request of the Prince himself.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” one of the guards said, evidently looking the newcomer up and down.

“Why, because my clothes are dirty? Some group of tramps attacked me on my way here. I’d say that’s your problem, is it not? Protecting the castle?”

The knights sounded uncertain. “Yes, but —”

“Fine, turn me away. I’m sure Prince Lupin will be very proud of your excellent service.” Sarcasm, biting and dripping.

“Give us your name, and we’ll ask the prince.”

“You’ll hardly need my name,” the voice scoffed. “The prince will know who you’re talking about.”

A long pause. “Go on, then,” the knight said hastily, as though he was beckoning the man forward. There was the sound of footsteps, and then everything settled back into normal, the breaths of visitors and the murmur of chatter. Low. Esteemed. Remus already missed the straightforwardness of the faceless voice.

Special invitation of the prince himself, Remus repeated to himself, frowning and trying to figure out who it could be. If it was one of the royal ladies, perhaps he would’ve been more easily convinced, but it was definitely a man’s voice. There were no men he’d given special invitation, were there?

The knights shouldn’t have let him in. They were new guards, hired by Lyall last week, so Remus was hardly surprised. The new ones were always terrified of getting it wrong, and if there was the chance they’d offend a visitor by detaining him, they’d do anything to avoid it.

Any other day, Remus would have hurriedly called a guard to let them know that he hadn’t in fact invited somebody special, and that they should immediately remove him from the castle. It was the responsible thing — the princely thing — to do.

Yet, he was already dreading this stuffy ball enough -- he could practically smell the perfume from here -- and having a hooded visitor with a fake invitation might liven things up.

He could pretend he’d never heard the knight’s conversation, and nobody would be any wiser.

Guilt, familiar. Excitement, new. He liked the feeling, the adrenaline and secret smile he had to fight against, pressing his lips into a line.

This was wrong. This was so incredibly wrong, because it could be anybody trying to break into the castle. An assassin, for all he knew.

But non-action was easier than he’d expected, so he stood, tried to hide a smile, and waited.

Remus shook his head, trying to rid himself of the fog and remember all the names he was supposed to be remembering, the special details he had to know. The people he was supposed to be courting and greeting and holding civilized conversations with.

By the time he was walking down the velvet coated stairs, head held carefully aloft, he’d almost completely forgotten about it.

His mother and father were there, crowns resting on their respective heads, elegant in comparison to his own. He still hated it. Too heavy, too shiny. It looked ridiculous, in his opinion. although his opinion hardly mattered. There were girls all around the room, blending into the wallpaper with their flowery gowns, like they belonged there, a part of the wall. To anybody else, they would look stupid — merely decorations with their drapes and ornaments, their smiles and giggles.

But Remus knew how much more there was. He saw as they whispered out of the corners of their mouths, quiet words spent for the sole purpose of aligning families. Truces, bonds… they meant everything in this world, the one Remus wanted to leave.

Cunning, in the guise of society’s view of girls.

It wasn’t until a guard approached him that Remus suddenly remembered.

“Yes?” he asked briskly, the guard pulling him aside. It was less than elegant with the clanking of armor, but that didn’t matter.

“There was a man,” the guard said, and his voice was muffled through the armor, but it sounded uneasy nonetheless. Terrified, more like.

“And?” Remus asked impatiently. “I don’t have all day, you know.”

“Welehimgebywithnoivitation,” the knight said in a rush, mumbling worse than ever.

“What?”

“Er — we — we let him by with no invitation, but he said he was here on your request —”

“You let someone enter the castle no invitation?” Remus feigned shock, as though this was the first time he was hearing of such a thing. “Without checking?” he pushed on, letting his voice slip into one of controlled fury despite the quaver of excitement in his stomach. A mystery, a problem. That, he could live with.

“Er — yes,” the knight said. “We, er, we assumed you’d know who he was. I thought I’d let you know, so you were aware.”

“We’ll discuss this later,” Remus said dismissively. They would have to be punished, of course, and they knew it, because Lyall and Hope wouldn’t accept lacklustre security. But he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t tell them to send out a search, or secure the castle. He let it be.

Remus walked back to the dance floor, ignoring the guard’s distressed noise from behind him, and letting himself be sucked back into the pressing bodies and whirling arms. He buried himself in the scent of sweat and flowery perfume, an unpleasant mingle that made him want to cry. But he was the prince, and this was the ball, so he wouldn’t cry. He passed off the stinging in his eyes as mere exhaustion, and instead focused on his feet, the swaying, the stepping, the sidelong looks and muted conversations.

He busied himself with bowing and kissing hands, palms that felt too soft and too small, and he tried to ignore the lurching inside of him as girls curtsied and giggled, batting their eyelash, following King Lyall and Queen Hope’s cues.

He needed a good marriage to redeem himself after the Accident.

It was as he was dancing carefully, in a manufactured stumble alongside one noblewoman that he caught it. Out of the corner of his eyes, a whirl of movement. Of course, there was movement everywhere, but something about this felt different. Black and red and white and hoods.

And there it was — a figure slipping down the stairs that lead up to the royal quarters. He looked the part well, dressed in clothes that befit gallantry, but something — something was off. And Remus realized suddenly what it was.

Those were his robes.

This figure, with close cropped black hair and bright red lips, a hood drawn over his face and Remus’s cloak around his shoulders, was the same one that had slipped past the guards. Remus was certain of it.

And from the looks of it, he must have stolen Remus’s robes as a disguise. All in all, not a bad job, Remus mused. He approached the man, who was now on the dancefloor, trying to look like he belonged there.

“Will you grant me this dance?” Remus asked smoothly, holding out his hand. Elegance wasn’t something you were born with, it was something you developed. It was one part of himself that he was confident in — the ability to move with grace and lurk with distinction.

The figure turned. “Perhaps,” he said, rich and low, stilted instead of smooth, and the voice confirmed his suspicions. It was the man from the door.

It wasn’t entirely uncommon for him to dance with another man. Perhaps it was slightly out of place at a ball where the sole purpose was finding a proper suitor, but overall it wouldn’t attract undue attention.

He held out a hand, and Remus, fueled with excitement and newness and a sense of adventure, took it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I don't understand ao3 because I accidentally deleted this? But it's back up and here's a new chapter!!

Sirius was silently panicking. It had been disappointingly easy to slip into the castle, nothing more than a few easy lies, in which he was practiced enough after the years he'd spent protecting Regulus. It was easier still to slip up the stairs and snatch robes from a passing servant, their view obscured by the laundry heaped in their arms.  

Perhaps, after all that, he’d let his confidence get ahead of him.

There was the small problem that he still had no idea what his plan was. When he'd been back in the forest, it was so obscure, so completely unlikely that he would even make it into the castle, that he hadn't bothered to think much ahead.

He would have to come up to something on the spot, but as he took the Prince Lupin’s hand it was starting to look like a worse and worse idea. Thinking on your toes was turning out to be a lot easier in theory than in practice.

The biggest problem, as he realized, was that Prince Lupin was wearing his crown. Back in the forest, he'd pictured nicking the crown in a similar way that he'd done the robes, but now he found that wouldn't be possible.

“So,” Prince Lupin said quietly, speaking in a lilting whisper next to his ear so the entire dancefloor wouldn’t be privy to their conversation. It sounded princely — of course it did — and somehow the whisper rang with royalty. “Pray, tell me, who are you and what do you want?”

Sirius looked down at his feet, concentrating on moving over the dancefloor and trying to blend in as best he could with the other dancing ladies and gentlemen.

“I'm here to warn you," he said, slowly, letting the cadence and speed of his words act as a stalling mechanism.

"Warn me?" Prince Lupin asked, sounding slightly amused. "Is that so? And you thought the best way to do that would be — what — to sneak into the castle and pretend you were invited to the ball?"

"You wouldn't have let me in otherwise," Sirius shrugged. "It was the easiest way."

Prince Lupin spun him around, raising one eyebrow fluidly, somehow to the time of their movements. Sirius could see a question forming on his lips, and he quickly interrupted to buy himself more time.

“You're the prince, then?” Sirius asked, eyes trained on the bronze metal that rested atop his head, heavy against signature curls. It didn't look very secure. Easy enough to grab and run, but there were too many people here to risk that, too many guards standing at the door.

“You were the one who asked me to follow you here, if I remember correctly,” Prince Lupin told him. “I believe that I’m the one who should be asking the questions here.”

"Ask away, then," Sirius said, resigned to his fate. He could buy himself time, but time was getting him nowhere.

"What are you here to warn me about?" The Prince asked, a tone of amusement still cutting through his every word. His hand tightened against Sirius's. In a warning or to steer him, Sirius wasn't sure.

"Somebody is going to kill you,” Sirius whispered, leaning in closer like it was a secret that couldn't be heard, on pain of death. 

"Are they?" Prince Lupin asked, not sounding very impressed. The whole thing felt impossibly surreal, dancing with Prince Lupin when only weeks ago he'd been hiding in his room from the wrath of Orion. "Who, and how do you know?" He still sounded as though he was humoring Sirius, and it set a fire inside him. A challenge. Sirius wanted to show him.

"Maybe we should have this conversation somewhere more private," Sirius said, lowering his voice and pretending to glance around the dancefloor. He was surprisingly good at tailoring his manorisms and pasting tiny looks onto his face that nobody would believe were acted.

Prince Lupin let out a low laugh. "You think I''ll fall for that? You tell me somebody wants to kill me, and then you ask me to follow you — a stranger — to an empty room of the castle?"

Sirius frowned. 

"Fine," he said, sudden inspiration striking him. "They're at this ball, you know. The person who wants to do away with you."

"You still haven't told me who it is."

"I can't," Sirius whispered, trying to make it sound sincere, although he was barely holding back a bout of nervous laughter, the kind that erupted out of him when nothing was remotely funny. "But I have an idea."

"And what would that be?"

"Give me your crown," Sirius said, and hoped his palms weren't too sweaty against Prince Lupin's. Hoped it wouldn’t give him away. “I’ll pretend to be you. That way, you'll be safe."

Prince Lupin let out a real laugh at that, and Sirius could practically feel Lupin's body shaking against his, his steps faltering for a moment in an altogether ungainly way.

"Is that the best you've got?" Prince Lupin asked, and there was a grin curling the corner of his mouth as he pulled himself back together, bring one hand up to touch his crown, the other still intertwined with Sirius’s.

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, was it a dare or something of the sort? I'm impressed that you got into the castle, I must say, but you can't honestly think I'd believe you."

Sirius was about to argue, to push it further. But there was something in Prince Lupin’s eyes that told him it would be useless to continue with the charade. 

"Why don't you believe me?” he asked, trying not to sound too dejected.

"A stranger sneaks into the castle, tells me there's a murderer, can’t tell me who it is, and then practically offers up his life in return for my crown? I'm not sure what about that you'd find believable."

Sirius sighed, and instead focused on the movement around and against him, of how remarkably warm and callused Lupins hands were for somebody who he'd imagined would sit around all day sipping tea.

"Yeah, it was a dare," he conceded, because after mulling it over in his head, he'd come to the conclusion that it really was the best excuse. "I'll go," he said again, and Lupin laughed one more.

"That would probably be best," he murmured, still right by Sirius's ear. He was half a head taller, his hair brushing the side of Sirius's face in a way that was all too tantalizing. "You might not get away so easily next time though, I'm warning you."

“Do your best not to get murdered in the meantime,” Sirius said, and it was supposed to be reassuring but it came out as ominous instead. 

“I’ll do the best I can,” he murmured. He didn't let go of Sirius though, merely kept dancing with him, spiraling and leading him over the dancefloor like he was a normal guest.

"Are you going to let me go?" Sirius asked, and finally he seemed to have broken through the royal exterior, because Remus pulled a face that wasn't princely in the slightest.

"Then I have to dance with _them_ ," he said, nodding at the rest of the ladies who were subtly trying to catch his eye. 

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"No," Prince Lupin said hurriedly, and the professionalism was back. "That's the point of this gala, after all. I trust you can see yourself out without my help, or am I going to find you detained by my guards later?”

"I can find my way out," Sirius grinned. He extracted his hand from Prince Lupin's, feeling a twinge of disappointment at the removal of another heartbeat against his palm.

He slipped out the door, trying not to look back, and when he did, Prince Lupin was dancing with a lady. Maybe he looked slightly stiffer, less happy to dance, and maybe that sent a rush of satisfaction through Sirius, but he ignored it. It didn't matter.

It took Sirius a while to find his way back to the campsite this time, the trees trying to wrap around him and lure him further into the darkness. By the time he finally saw a flicker of light up ahead, he was hopelessly exhausted, feeling like he'd walked more than a thousand miles in the space of less than an hour.

When he entered their realm, downtrodden and filthy, the royal robes still wrapped around him but now splattered with mud, all of their heads were already turned in his direction.

"You didn't get it, then?" Prongs asked, eyeing the cloak suspiciously like he might be hiding the crown somewhere underneath.

"No," Sirius said. He dropped himself onto a rock by the fire, feeling supremely out of place, but unable to stand for a second longer. "I tried, but. No, I didn't get it."

"Then what are you doing here?" the redhead asked sharply. She was frowning at him, at his empty hands. 

"I..." he trailed off, and glanced around the circle. All eyes were trained on him still, but they didn't all look as harsh as the redhead's, and Sirius was nothing if not good at fighting for things he wanted very much. "I'm not going to give up after one attempt," he said, frowning around at them like that was a ridiculous notion. “I’m going to try again tomorrow. I won’t sleep until I have that crown.”

“Not our fault when you die from sleep deprivation,” the rat-boy muttered, and Sirius glared at him, wishing the words didn’t cut so deep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not proofread or beta, so sorry for any mistakes :) I have two finals left and then I'll be posting much more often, I promise!

His sleep in the camp was uneasy that night. It was a strange kind of uneasy, better than sleeping across the hall from Orion’s resounding snores, but still on edge. He wasn’t able to fully slip off into peace.

Sirius couldn’t remember ever being so glad for the sun to rise. It was different to wake up in the forest, and only now did he realize how often the temperature changed, how the dew clung even to the pine needles and dripped uncomfortably across his skin.

Most everyone was already awake by the time he crawled out of his tent, sitting around a campfire and laughing easily with each other. The redhead was arm wrestling Prongs — and winning, by the looks of it.

Without taking her concentration of their battle, she spoke.

“You finally awake, Snow Black?”

Sirius opened his mouth to respond indignantly — perhaps about the hour of the day, or maybe to say that his name _wasn’t_ Snow Black, but he thought better of it. They were giving him hospitality although he’d given them nothing in return, and it was probably best to treat them with respect.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly, still tingling with embarrassment that he’d failed to steal the crown. Somehow, he’d thought this group of vagabonds wouldn’t hold a thing against him, not when he’d grown up learning how to sneak out of Grimmauld Place when Orion came home drunk. Not when he’d grown up grappling with Regulus even though his fighting skills were meagre in comparison. And yet, he didn’t seem to hold a candle to the group of tramps. “I’m awake.”

“You never told us what happened with Prince Lupin,” one of the girls said, casually poking at the fire with the end of a charred stick. The fire was tamer by daylight, less ethereal, less provoking, and it let Sirius catch his breath.

“Well, I got into the castle,” Sirius said defensively.

Prongs snorted. “Oh yeah, real big accomplishment, that. It must’ve been hard getting past the guards, yeah?”

People all around the circle were sniggering, and the girl poked at the fire, sending up a plume of sparks.

“What?” Sirius asked, sure he was missing something.

“Darling,” one of the boys said, rolling his eyes and picking a leaf out of the hair of the girl beside him. “That castle’s got the worst security around. If you failed to get in there, that would be depressing.”

“Well!” Sirius exclaimed defensively, taking a seat next to the redhead, even though she was by far the most intimidating. She was the closest, and he didn’t want to walk around the circle with all of them watching him. “I stole his robes. I dressed like a noble.”

“Aye?” The bald girl perked up, quit dabbling with the fire, and turned to him. “For real, now?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said proudly. “And then I danced with him.”

“You danced with the Prince but you didn’t get his crown?” Prongs asked incredulously, ignoring a sharp look from the redhead.

“Well, I tried! I told him there was someone trying to murder him. I told him I could take his crown, save him from the murderer. It was a good plan, right up until he told me he didn't believe me." Sirius leaned back, crossing his arms defensively and hating that he was so easily riled up, but unable to do anything about it.

“Okay, I take back anything I might have said about being impressed. You, Snow Black, are an i _diot.”_

"Well," Sirius said, confidence growing, "If it's really so easy to get into the castle, it should be no problem for me to go back again."

"With a better plan this time, I should hope," the redhead muttered, although there was a hint of a smile on her face that was accentuated by the splotches of orange light from the fire, dancing in tandem with her hair.

"Oh, this one'll be genius," Sirius grinned. The fire jumping merrily, and he watched it with a renewed feeling of confidence simmering in his veins. "This time, he'll believe me through and through. This time, I'm going to get that stupid crown if it's the last thing I do."

* * *

Remus Lupin swore the universe was against him. He'd woken up with a throbbing under his temple that wormed its way into his mind whenever he was trying to concentrate, flooding his thoughts with dreams of pain.

When his servant had greeted him at the door and told him King Lyall was waiting, it had been with a grimace and a kind of smile that let Remus know no good would come of this meeting.

He walked slowly down the stairs, trailing his hand along the over-polished banister and biding his time. Down the stairs, through the hall, to find his parents waiting for him at the breakfast table, those looks plastered across their faces that screamed power and disappointment all at once.

Remus felt his stomach curdle.

He loved his parents, and no matter how tired he might grow of being a prince, seeing their disappointment was enough to set him on edge by the best of days. Certainly now, on one of the worst.

"Remus," Hope said, false honey running through her from the careful fold of her hands to the swoop of her gown, all the way to her fluttering eyelashes. Even her voice was pure honey, sickeningly sweet, laced with an undercurrent danger.

"Mother," he said defiantly. He usually referred to her as mother in private, but at this moment, it was a jab. In present company, with the servants around, he was supposed to call her Queen.

It was subtle, perhaps, but subtle was the only type of disobedience he could get away with since the Accident.

"Do sit," She said pleasantly, setting the fork down and allowing a small flourish of her fingers. "Take your place."

Remus did so immediately.

"Now, let's discuss the ball," Lyall cut in, all business, no false pretenses like his mother threw out.

"Ah. Yes."

"Remind me, Remus, what the point of this ball was?"

"Finding an eligible lady to marry so we can unite our kingdoms," Remus recited, a mantra he'd learned from birth to ingrain the purpose of marriage into his head.

"That is correct. To make deals."

Remus waited warily.

"There were some promising ladies in attendance," Lyall continued and it wasn't the corn-silk smooth voice of his mother. It was grating. Rocky. _Angry_. "Princess Delacour from Beauxbatons offered a peace settlement between our Kingdoms. You talked to her, of course?"

"Mmm," Remus said, wishing he had something of slightly more substance to give, but unable to supply any adequate details. The entire night, his brain had been filled.

Not only with the strange hood wearing man, but with the fact that he'd directly disobeyed protocol and allowed the man to flit in and out of the castle without a lick of punishment.

That was the way the Accident had happened in the first place. His damned wanderlust, the one that was starting to flare up again as years went by and the Accident receded into the distance.

"Of course, then, you will have made a generous offer for her hand in marriage."

Remus was in a corner now, the metaphorical ones he was always being backed into, the ones that made him yearn to run free in a place where he could be pushed into real corners and attacked with fists instead of words.

"Of course," Remus said meekly, knowing none of this would do any good now.

"That's odd." Back to Hope now, a ping-pong match that his parents didn't have to rehearse because they'd performed it so many times. "She mentioned that you brushed off her offer with nothing more than a glance."

"I —"

"We got several reports like that, actually," Lyall cut in. "But that wouldn't make any sense."

"No," Remus said, too small to argue but too scared to ignore.

"Then what happened?"

"I was preoccupied," Remus whispered, and he hated that his parents could turned him into little more than a servant, stuttering and bowing before them. He longed for the courage that had overwhelmed him when the hooded stranger had showed up.

“Preoccupied.” The servants standing in the room looked scared, poised to run if need be. “With something _more_ important?”

 _Fuck._ Remus couldn’t very well say that he’d been busy thinking about a stranger he’d let into the castle.

But just at that moment, he was saved by a knock on the door.


	6. Chapter 6

The door to the Lupin castle swung open, and Sirius felt a lurch of satisfaction deep in his stomach as it did. He was dressed as a beggar this time — it hadn’t been difficult with the assortment of torn clothes that the tramps had lent him, covered in dirt and as far from rich as he could get.

And then he looked up to see none other than Prince Lupin himself standing in the doorway and staring at him with a curious tilt of his head. After a moment where he shifted his bare feet, grating against the steps, Lupin straightened up — prim and proper as he was.

“How can I help you?” he asked, and maybe it was Sirius’s imagination, but there was a sparkle of amusement somewhere in his voice.

“I’m here to speak with the royal family,” Sirius said, making his voice sound scratchy and uncertain, the way he imagined the voice of a beggar might sound, although he might have overdone it slightly.

“Are you now?” Prince Lupin asked, and there was definitely amusement in his voice now, the same amusement Sirius had heard the last time he’d attempted to steal the crown.

“Yeah,” Sirius said, pronouncing the word off-kilter and hunching his shoulders in a way that emphasized the rips in his clothes. He was a beggar, he reminded himself. He had to seem _desperate._

“What do you want with the royal family?”

“I was kicked out of my house,” Sirius said in that same scratchy voiced, and almost laughed at the fact that he was telling the truth. “And I have nothing to live on, I don’t and —”

“Remus,” a call came from somewhere deep within the castle. “Who’s there?”

“It’s nothing!” Prince Lupin yelled back, and Sirius bristled at being called nothing, but he didn’t say anything. It had happened enough back at home. “Just some beggar.”

“Send them away!” the person yelled harshly. “They have no business here and you know it. Stop wasting time, we have things to discuss.”

Sirius stared at Prince Lupin, trying to implore with his gaze, hoping he would have a soft spot somewhere. In fact, he _knew_ Lupin had something within him — knew from the way he’d acted at the dance. Sirius stared at the intricate carvings over the castle door, pointing to them.

“You’re rich,” he whispered. “Look at your castle. You’re swimming in money you don’t need. If I had half as much money as it took to carve those patterns on that stupid door —”

“You have to go,” Remus said firmly, although there was a quaver in his voice that sent a thrill of hope through Sirius. He didn’t sound as condident now. He sounded almost weak, the kind of weak where Sirius could pluck the right strings and twist them in such a way that he might listen.

The kind of weakness that Regulus has, where all Sirius had to do was whisper the right words at the right volume in the right order with the right time.

That’s all it was. A secret combination of words.

“Please, Prince Lupin,” he whispered, abandoning his pretense as a beggar, because this might be his chance right here. His chance to be welcomed into the group of seven with their weird nicknames that came as easily as their actual names, that came as easily as their plans to steal.

Lupin glanced back towards where the voice was calling him and then he looked to Sirius, there and back again, there and back once more.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said finally, and the swear felt wrong coming from someone draped in such expensive clothes. “Wait there.”

So Sirius did. He stood in the garden, and listened as Lupin called back to his parents.

“I’ll be back in an hour!” he called to them. “There’s a group of beggars that needs dealing with.”

Then the door shut with a loud bang, and Prince Lupin stepped out, wringing his hands and glancing behind him.

“What do you want?” he asked quickly, even though Sirius was certain he’d already answered that question. Lupin looked extremely out of his element, like he was stuck standing on one foot. “Why are you here?”

“I told you,” Sirius said. They were pressed up against the castle wall, and it made him think suddenly how insane all of this was when only weeks ago he’d been pressed up against the door of his room, terrified that he would never be able to escape. “I need money.”

“I don’t have anything for you,” Prince Lupin shot back. “We have beggars here all the time. If we gave money to everybody who came, we wouldn’t have enough money to run the kingdom.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sirius shot back, eyeing the crown. He barely noticed that he’d let his poor demeanor slip. “Even your crown must cost enough to make a living. And what purpose does it serve?”

Prince Lupin narrowed his eyes. “What —?”

“Look, give me your crown. You can pretend I stole it.”

“You _are_ the same person,” Prince Lupin said quietly, eyes roving over Sirius’s hooded face. “I thought you were when I saw you at the door, but I wasn’t sure.”

“What are you talking about?” Sirius snapped, a sinking feeling already latching onto his stomach.

“You’re the guy from the ball,” Lupin said mildly, drawing his midnight-velvet cloak tighter around him. He relaxed slightly and leaned harder against the wall, eyes trailing over Sirius. Taking him in. _Curious._

“I have no clue what you’re saying,” Sirius insisted, even though he was pretty certain the game was up at this point. “I’ve never been here before.”

“Right,” Lupin snorted, “Look, you aren’t fooling anybody, let alone me. You tried to get my crown before too. What is it with you?”

Sirius didn’t respond. It was all about words, he knew that much, and he wasn’t sure which ones would be wrong here. He opted not to speak.

Then Prince Lupin started and his eyes widened, stilling on what was visible of Sirius’s face. Then he reached out, and with one fluid movement reminiscent of his easy dancing, he grabbed the hood and pushed it up so he’d have a better view of Sirius’s face.

“Are you — are you Snow Black?” he asked incredulously.

That’s when the panic kicked in. All of this had been an awful idea. “No. Absolutely not, definitely not. I’m not, no.”

“How are you alive?” Prince Lupin asked, evidently not hearing — or more likely, not believing — his denial. “Sir Black put out an announcement, he said you died in a tragic accident! How are you here?”

“I’m not,” Sirius said quickly. “I’m a cousin of his.”

“Has anyone ever mentioned that you’re an awful liar?” Prince Lupin snorted, still leaning against the wall his head barely touching the carvings as they danced around and over and through his hair. He was slightly taller than Sirius, curls running rampant around his crown, looking out of place with his feet in the dirt.

“Fine, I escaped,” Sirius muttered. “You tell anybody and they’ll kill me.”

“What?”

“My father is jealous that I’m prettier than he is, he wants me dead.”

Prince Lupin stared at him in disbelief, eyebrows raised.

“That’s a whole new level of vain,” he commented, sighing and glancing back at the door.

“Yeah, well,” Sirius muttered darkly with a roll of his eyes. “That’s my family.” He was running with the odd flow of this conversation, a conversation he’d never have imagined having before.

“So you came to the castle to…” Lupin trailed off, looking supremely confused. “To steal my crown?”

Sirius looked away, wiggling his feet to bury them in the dirt even though he’d given up on pretending to be a beggar.

“Something like that,” he murmured, and looked back towards the forest, feeling miserable.

“Why?”

“It’s complicated,” Sirius whispered, more dejected than he’d ever remembered being back at home. At home, he never had hopes to be let down. Hope was always a mistake. “It doesn’t matter.”

And with that, he turned and started to trudge back into the forest, letting the trees envelop him in their blanket that could block out even the sun. Back to those seven vagabonds who had strange names and stranger personalities. Back, with nothing in hand. He’d failed once again, exactly like they’d predicted. He’d failed to prove them wrong like he’d been so certain he could do. He always failed, one way or another.

Until he heard a yell behind him.

* * *

“Wait!” Remus called after the retreating back, glancing towards the castle frantically. “Come on, you heard me, get back here!”

Snow Black turned around with a hopeful expression on his face that made Remus want to strangle him. He hated how attractive Snow Black was, because it was always too easy to get caught up in appearances. Façades, disguises, honeyed looks. That much he knew from his time as royalty.

“What?” Snow Black asked.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said, pulling the crown off his head and holding it out. “Take the stupid crown. I don’t really want it anyways, and — just take it, okay?”

“I —” Snow Black stared at him for a minute and then hesitantly reached out, pale fingers closing around the metal that he’d borne on his head for far too long. “You’re an awful Prince, do you know that?”

“Excuse me?”

“You let me escape from the ball, I heard your parents yelling at you, and now you’re handing over your crown? What — why are you doing this?”

“Do _you_ fancy being a prince?” Remus asked, wrinkling his nose. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. This isn’t my choice of a life, okay? Stop judging me for it and we won’t have a problem. Now take your stupid crown and don’t come back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy it's been forever since I've updated so sorry about that :) Definitely will be updating more regularly now!! I love you all!


	7. Chapter 7

Remus watched him go into the forest, enveloped in the trees like he belonged there. Vaguely, he wondered what it would be like to run back into the forest after Snow Black, to live amongst the trees with bare feet like him, in the wild. To live with no sense of duty.

To be _free_. Except he had an obligation. He’d been over this a million times in his head, and he couldn’t let it get to him now. He was the Prince; he’d always been the Prince, and that wasn’t something he could change.

So he ran back into the castle, breathing heavily. Faking, pretending, all of that came so much more naturally to him than it did to Snow Black. When Snow Black tried to pretend, like he had as a beggar and a noble, it was stilted, like he couldn’t help being himself. It was as if no matter what he faced, he knew who he was so completely that it was impossible to be otherwise.

Remus wished he was like that. Maybe then he wouldn’t be flitting back and forth between the dutiful royal and the wanderlust drunk voyager. He didn’t have a set persona — he was adrift, and Snow Black was unanchoring him, trying to pull him further into fantasies.

“Mum!” he called, letting the name slipped in a faked kind of panic. “They stole my crown! The beggars, they grabbed it and ran!”

Queen Hope and King Lyall were at his side in an instant. A contrast between them, so great, so telling. For Hope, it was worry. For Lyall, anger.

“What were you thinking?” he growled. “Facing down beggars by yourself? That’s a job for the guards, not for a Prince! Did you think this was a good idea? How stupid can you get?”

“Lyall!” Hope scolded, turning back to him. “Remus, are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“No,” he said, letting his voice shake, even though he was barely fazed by them anymore. Not much of his future was in their control. He had a lot more power than he used to think.

“Maybe if they had, it would have knocked some sense into you.” Lyall jerked his head, looking away.Remus stared. Hope glared. “It’s not only this,” Lyall said, fists clenched at his sides. “First the ball, then the crown? We’ve given you a chance to redeem yourself after the incident, Remus.”

“We’ve talked about this enough,” Hope said under her breath, and Remus sighed.

He’d heard _this_ before. Too many times — at night when he was supposed to be sleeping, during the day when he was supposed to be working. The incident, the _Incident_. Incident with a capital “I” because apparently it was that big of a deal.

“Look,” Remus said, so exhausted that he didn’t bother hiding behind a mask. “I know it gave gave a bad reputation to everything, and I’ll —” he choked on the words.

They stared at him, waiting and expectant. He had to force out the words as they tried to hold themselves in. They weren’t supposed to come out like this, not in this order.

“I’ll marry a respectable girl like you said. Everybody will forget about what happened, and… that’s all there is to it.”

* * *

They had a field day when Sirius got back with the crown. He’d briefly considered running off with it on his own, because then he wouldn’t have to split the money amongst the group of tramps, but they had far more experience than he did with this — this lifestyle.

“You really did it, eh?” the rat-looking boy asked, marveling at the crown. “This should feed us fer more than enough weeks.”

“Not yet,” Sirius frowned, holding the crown out of reach. They’d made their way back to the same place as last night, and had another fire going already. “First, you have to let me join you.”

“We said we would, didn’ we?” the redhead said impatiently. “We keep our word, y’know.”

“Right, you seem exactly like the kind of people who would always tell the truth.” There was no way to miss the sarcasm in his voice, Sirius made sure of that.

Prongs laughed at that, tipping his head as if to say _touché._ “Aye, maybe not, but we’re loyal to each other. If yer a stranger, we won’t hesitate to manipulate you, but —”

“If you’re part of the group, you’re part of the group,” redhead finished.

Sirius still held back. “Are you sure?”

“Aye,” the bald one said, stepping forwards. “S’long as you don’t try anything funny.”

“Right.” Sirius stepped forwards. He handed them the crown, because he didn’t see what else to do. They grinned and settled themselves around the fire, marveling at the heavy metal that shone against the sun, reflecting almost golden.

“I think introductions are in order,” the bald girl smiled. “I’m Dorcas, that there is Marlene —” she pointed to the other girl, “but everyone calls her Marls.”

“I’m Lily,” said the girl with flaming red hair, “but Red is fine. That’s Frank and Alice, but they come and go.” Frank nodded in greeting. “Prefer to be on their own, they do, unless times get tough.”

“I’m James,” said the grinning boy, ruffling his hair, “or Prongs. And that there is Wormy.”

“It’s Peter!” the boy squeaked indignantly.

“Do you all have nicknames, then?” Sirius frowned.

“Aye. You need one too,” Dorcas grinned.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Marlene chipped in. “Padfoot, because he walks so quietly.”

They all laughed uproariously, ignoring the flush in Sirius’s cheeks. Maybe he’d stepped on a fair share of twigs when he was running from the castle, but he wasn’t _that_ bad, or at least he hadn’t thought he was.

“Well, Padfoot, you going to tell us what happened at the castle?”

Sirius settled slightly, trying to throw off the uneasiness that still settled over him. “Believe it or not, he gave it to me. All I did was ask, and he handed it right over.”

“Nice try,” Frank snorted, letting out yawn. “There’s no way.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows.

“You can’t be telling the truth?” Marlene asked, eyes wide. “He gave it to you? Why? What did you say?”

“Asked for it,” Sirius shrugged, “And he handed it right over like it was nothing.”

Marlene snorted. “Maybe he fell for you beauty,” she scoffed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “Maybe he just couldn’t resist the ever-famous Snow Black.”

* * *

The next day they went to the market, toting the crown like it was their prized possession.

“Won’t anybody be suspicious if a bunch of beggar-like children show up at the market carrying the Prince’s crown? I mean, we don’t exactly look rich,” Sirius said doubtfully.

“Speak for yourself,” Dorcas said, running her hand through imaginary hair in a scarily good impression of Prongs. “I think we look like proper royalty. Rolling in riches, aren’t we?”

“Aye, shut up,” Frank said impatiently. “There’s someone we usually visit who takes payment, no questions asked. We’ll get what we need from him. Works down the road a ways, but he’s a sketchy bloke in any case.”

They marched through the market. Sirius was careful to keep his hood high, covering every inch of his face in case anybody realized. If news got out that he was still alive — he didn’t particularly want to think about what would happen then. They came to a stop at a small vendor stand that was lurking in the shadows.

“Severus?” Lily asked, peering in through the door, “You in there?”

For some reason the name sounded vaguely familiar to Sirius, but he couldn’t quite place it, so he followed them. He kept his head down, enshrouded in a cloak once again, because he was too easy to recognize with his fair complexion and too-red lips.

James let out a small noise of contempt as he pushed through the flap. “Snivellus,” he sneered to the man. He was dressed like Sirius — hidden behind a hood and a long cloak, as though he didn’t want anyone to see his face.

The man dipped his head towards Lily, ignoring James completely. “Who’s the newcomer?” he asked in a voice practically dripping with grease.

“ _This,”_ Lily said, “is the stowaway, Snow Black.”

“Lily!” James said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “You can’t go around telling people he’s alive, they already want him dead.”

“It’s Severus,” she said sternly. “He’s our friend.”

“He’s not our friend,” James muttered. “And _this_ is what he does for a living, which makes it even worse.” Lily rolled her eyes and turned back to the cloaked man.

While they negotiated, Sirius studied the man. It was bugging him, worming its way into his mind, because he was certain he’d seen the man before. And his voice —

Sirius turned away in frustration, letting Lily work out the rest of the deal.

When they finally left, James was grumbling.

“We can’t trust him Lily, I’ve told you this a million times. He’s loyal to nobody but himself.”

“Shut up Prongs,” he spat, shaking her head. Evidently, this was a sore spot for her. “He won’t run off with it.”

“What’s going on?” Sirius asked, hurrying to catch up with them, and James rolled his eyes.

“Snivellus told us we had to come back in a few days to collect the rest of the money that he’d promised to trade us. Lily thinks he’s going to hold to his word, but —” he broke of with a frustrated groan.

“Look,” Lily said, frowning and crossing her arms. “Let it go. Everything will be fine, and we have more than enough to get us by for a while now.”

“Sure,” James snorted. “I’m sure _everything_ will be just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, actually writing! Things'll start to get more interesting soon :)


	8. Chapter 8

True to his word, when they returned to Severus a couple days later, he had the rest of their money in hand.

Lily shot a smug look at Prongs, who rolled his eyes and shook his head at her.

"Thank you Severus," Lily said, staring directly at James as she said it, a grin on her face. It struck Sirius again — the ease with which they did absolutely everything.

“Wait,” Severus said, drawing out the word as they turned to go. “I’ve got something for your friend.” From behind his back, he withdrew an apple, bright red. Almost _too_ red, an unnatural gleam of color. “It’s probably difficult not to be supplied with food whenever you like, especially after spending your life like royalty, so here. A gift. Consider it a present from your loving family.” He held it out to Sirius.

Sirius took the apple, surprised but pleased. Maybe he really did know this man — the cadence of us voice was still nagging at the back of his mind. Perhaps even though this man wanted to keep his identity secret, he was paying Sirius back in the only way he could think of.

“Lucky bastard,” James grumbled, staring at the apple. Sirius rolled his eyes, tossing the apple in one hand, feeling the sheen against his skin.

“I got you the royal crown, and you’re jealous of an apple?”

“Nay, I'm not jealous of your _apple_. Snivellus is a right git to everyone except Lily. I don’t know what you did to get into his good books, but I hate you for it.”

When they got back, pouring their goods and money out in a pile around them, Sirius sat down and gladly took a bite of the apple. It tasted slightly strange, but juicier than usual, and he relished the sweet taste that flooded his mouth.

And then something shifted.

It started out as a wooziness, and then his brain clicked into place, because the apple had a distinct smell. One that he knew well, that was always floating out from under the cracked door in the Black Manor with tendrils of colored smoke. Potions.

Severus. Snivellus. They were the same person as _Snape_. The potioneer. The one who worked with the Black Family, who was always hiding out in their manor and sneaking around.

The one who, Sirius remembered with a jolt, had been commanded to kill him before Regulus chased after him. The one who, if he realized Sirius was alive, would most likely want to kill him again.

The one who maybe, just maybe, had already done exactly that.

It was the last thought he had before the world went black.

* * *

Remus sat in his room. He couldn’t do this. His stomach was spinning out of control all the way up to his head, giving him a headache that came in waves. He couldn’t do it. He could feel it in the nausea, but more than that, he could feel it somewhere deeper.

This couldn’t be his life. He couldn’t marry a girl and live in lies, he couldn’t do _any_ of it. He wanted to run, to bury his feet in the dirt like Snow Black, to ignore the place he was born with and have trees within arms reach every minute.

So he packed a bag. It had been growing steadily in him since the beginning, and he couldn’t do it. In some ways, it was Snow Black’s fault, but in other ways, it had been inevitable.

He knew what he was looking for, the part of the woods where that band of scoundrels hung out. He’d seen them before, of course, poaching off of his visitors, and secretly found their ploys rather amusing. He had to act the prince, though so he’d sent out soldiers after them.

But the band of vagabonds turned out to be unwittingly stealthy, always out of reach by a few minutes, and eventually the guards conceded defeat. It wasn’t worth their time or effort, not for a runaway bunch of kids.

So he trekked alone, without the echo of clanking armor, and made his way to the middle of the woods. He found their camp surprisingly easily, because they weren’t trying to stay quiet. No, there was quite a commotion at the camp.

“What the fuck happened?” came a voice, impatient and distraught. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t go near him, mate, he jus’ dropped dead, like.”

“Aye, took one bite of that apple —”

“ _Fucking Snivellus!_ Lily, what have I told you? _”_ Sharp, angry.

“There’s no proof that it was him!” A higher voice this time, slightly defensive, slightly uncertain.

“Lily, you can’t _seriously_ be defending —”

“Shut up, both of you.” Remus peered around the tree to see a bald girl, bending over a limp body. “Focus. Is he alive?”

Remus frowned, sure he was hearing wrong, and then decided _fuck it._ He stepped out from behind the tree.

And what he saw froze him in space. The body lying on the ground was the _thief’s._ He knew it, knew it from the messily cut hair and too red lips, from the beautiful face that was ethereal in a way that dragged your eyes after it no matter how hard you tried to look away.The beloved heir, fairest in the kingdom beside his stepmother. White as snow, heir of the Blacks.

Somehow it was still a surprise for him to see such an esteemed person, such a famous person like Snow Black lying in the woods. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised. After all, he himself was hardly the poster-boy prince behind the front he put up.

“What happened?” Remus asked, and they turned around gawking when they saw who it was.

“Are you —”

“Aye, it’s the prince.”

“What’re you —?”

Remus cut them all off. “It doesn’t matter. What happened to him?”

He had eyes only for the thief, inexplicably drawn to him. Against all odds, it wasn’t his beauty. It was the little things - a scar on his neck, the way even in sleep, his mouth was drawn upwards in a lilting smirk, like he was still plotting mischief. His weathered and callused hands. All the things that people would consider _not_ beautiful are what caught Remus’s eyes.

He could practically hear Snow Black, whispering to him. _Give me your crown._

“We think he might be poisoned,” the bald girl said, quickly overcoming her shock at seeing the Prince. “We sent Marls to find Snivellus, to try and get the antidote out of him. She’s the fastest runner.”

Remus refrained from commenting on the name _Snivellus._ Instead, he bent over Snow Black, feeling a flood of relief at the lightly fluttering pulse that was tapping at his neck. A sign that he was alive, however shortly it might be.

Thrumming against his skin, a tattooing beat, pale and uneven.

Remus couldn’t tear his eyes away.

_He was alive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at me, actually updating
> 
> (by the way I'm not really proofreading these so sorry for any mistakes!!)


	9. Chapter 9

It wasn’t long before the girl — Marls — was back, gasping and doubled over. Remus barely saw her, too focused on the pulse of Snow Black - consistent, consistent, still beating. _Alive, alive, alive_ with every beat of his heart.

He only snapped out of his reverie when he heard her frantic voice.

“Says — he has — to be —” she choked out, doubling over, a sheen of sweat smearing her freckles across her face. “Has to be kissed — by his soulmate.”

“What?” the bald girl asked blankly, wrinkling her brow. Remus knew her confusion was written across his own face as well, because he was almost _certain_ he’d misheard. He realized how straight he was still standing — his back poker-like, the way he’d always stood as a Prince, and he tried to relax himself, copying the posture of the frantic people around him.

“Soulmate,” Marls said, trying to communicate in as few words as possible. “Snivellus said we need to find his soulmate. He said we’d know who it was.”

The boy with messy hair and glasses stared at her, and then glanced over at Remus.

“Give us a minute,” he said, glaring, and they gathered together into a huddle. Arms around each other, skin connected, one with each other and the forest.

Remus strained, practiced at eavesdropping from hours trying to catch the royal affairs from his room. Not that they were very exciting, but the nurses told darned good stories when they thought nobody was listening. But apparently, these tramps were equally as good at whispering as Remus was at eavesdropping, because he couldn’t catch a single word. Only the sibilant hissing, like wind whistling through the gaps in the trees’ leaves.

Instead he was forced to wait, still zeroed in on the steady pulse of the skin at Sirius’s neck. Each beat was hope, another second he’d stayed alive. Tapping, tapping.

Remus still had no idea what was happening, or how Snow Black had gotten like this, but he didn’t dare ask. When they finally broke apart, some of them were looking grim, some worried, and the redhead and bald girl looked exasperated.

“It’s obviously you,” the glasses-boy said, ignoring the redhead’s noise of contempt.

“What?”

Now Remus was entirely lost. He pushed his feet into the ground like he’d imagined doing before. It felt dirty but somehow not — just cool against his feet, almost right. He pressed his palm against the tree, glad of the rough bark instead of silk. He allowed his face to mirror his feelings inside because, he reminded himself, that was okay here.

“It’s you,” the boy repeated, gesturing towards Remus. “You’re his soulmate, you have to be.”

 _“What?”_ Remus repeated, too dumbstruck and tired to think out another whole sentence.

The boy sighed in exasperation. “Are all you royals as idiotic as you look? Okay, I’ll spell it out for you.” He pointed to Sirius with exaggerated slowness, like he was talking to an ignorant child, but not even that — slower than one would talk to a child. “Boy poisoned by man from market. Man from market said soulmate’s kiss is antidote. Man from market say we will know who soulmate is.”

“Yeah, I got that much, believe it or not,” Remus said, ignoring the answering cough that sounded suspiciously like _not._ “But why do you think it’s me? You don’t _actually_ think there’s such a thing as soulmates, do you?”

The boy looked at him in annoyance, unfairly so, Remus thought. “Let’s think. The second Snow Black drops almost-dead, who but the _Prince_ shows up in the middle of the woods, where he’d have no reason to otherwise be, and he’s strangely worried about saving a random boy that he probably shouldn’t have any investment in. But no, you’re right, there’s no reason to think that you’re his soulmate, is there?”

“That’s fucking stupid,” Remus said, throwing away all his manner and etiquette training. Mrs. McGonagall would be horrified if she heard him, and he took great pleasure in that. He wormed his feet further into the dirt, spurred on by the imaginary horror on her face. “Soulmates aren’t real.” His own contempt was clearly reflected on the redhead and bald girls’ faces, and they nodded emphatically alongside him.

“Snivellus is having us on, it’s obvious,” said the bald girl. “You don’t think he’d actually tell us the antidote, do you? He wanted to throw us off track, waste our time. This whole soulmate business is utter bullshit.”

“Right, have you got any better ideas?” the messy-haired boy asked, rounding furiously on her and then looking back at Remus, like the question was directed entirely at him.

Remus stared down at Snow Black’s body, looking frozen despite its warmth, looking dead beside the pulse. Snow he was, cold as ice, and Remus wondered vaguely if he’d ever awake.

He also wondered, in a very tiny corner of his brain, if there was a possibility of the truth. It was the corner that had always gone into overdrive at night, working up elaborate fantasies where he was an adventurer instead of a prince, going on wild voyages in his head instead of studying piano and micro-managing his every move.

But he’d gotten good at suppressing that corner over time, because that had been a fantasy which that held no precedence over real life. So he did what he did best — what was needed in this situation — and he ignored it.

He ignored the fact that he felt a strange pull towards this half-dead stranger, and ignored the wonder if _maybe_ there was even the slightest chance that they were soulmates, as stupid as it sounded.

A heated argument was raging around him, and it was nothing like Remus was used to. In the court, their arguments were spoken with passive aggressive insults and silenced threats, with sentences disguised under a layer of flowery language, and analogies that meant so much more if you knew how to look closer. They were civil, cool, and looked like normal conversations to anybody else.

Here, it was yelling and sweat and flying words.

“He could _die,”_ the boy shouted, staring down the redhead. “Do you want him to die because you were too stubborn to test a theory? It’s your fault we’re in this mess anyways, with all your precious Snivellus business.”

“Don’t you _dare_ blame this on me, James Potter!”

“He could die!”

“Any of us could die at any second! He seems perfectly fine to me, doesn’t he? Looks like he’s in a deep sleep is all.”

“He was poisoned!”

“Proof?”

“Now’s not the time, Lily! It’s likely that his life is running out.”

“Aye, you two have great arguing skills,” the bald girl cut in, “But _you two_ don’t matter. It’s up to the Prince, ain’t it? He’s the one who you think is the ‘soulmate.’” She mimed air quotes around the word, skepticism ringing through her voice.

“Why would what’s-his-name poison Snow Black?” Remus asked, still not entirely understanding what was going on.

“It was probably an accident,” Lily jumped in immediately. “Definitely an accident. He works with potions and other substances of course, so it probably contaminated the apple —”

“That’s _bullshit,_ and you know it. You can’t defend him forever —” James started, fingernails digging into his own palms, his face white as the birch trees in a cluster of the campsite.

“Shut _up,”_ Dorcas interrupted them again. Remus noticed that the two people sitting in the corner weren’t talking much. They sat slightly separated, as though they were part of the group, but not really. A mousy boy sat cowering in the corner, hiding from their argument. “Whatever happened, whether Snivellus was trying to kill him or something else, he’s still alive. Remus. What are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to kiss him,” Remus said shortly, barely believing he was having this conversation.

James stared. “What?” he erupted. “You were the one all concerned with keeping him alive, aye? I thought you’d do anything!”

“He’s practically half-dead!” Remus said, looking down at the body and wrinkling his nose. “How’s he supposed to give consent like that, when he can’t even talk?”

“You’ve got to be _kidding_ me,” James groaned, slumping against the tree. “Consent? You think _consent_ is more important than his life?”

“Since when have you been so concerned with keeping people alive, Prongs?” Marls asked, reclining against a tree as well, face still masked with sweat and tension. “You usually don’t have a problem with leaving strangers on the ground.”

“He isn’t a stranger. He was one of us.”

“Barely.”

“Still.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Remus insisted. “I’m not kissing him, because that’s absolute bullshit anyways. If he _is_ poisoned, what we need is the antidote. No pretend _soulmate_ is going to fix anything. For all we know, the poison transfers at touch and Snivellus is trying to kill us all.”

“Thank you,” Lily said, relieved. “Prongs is being an idiot.”

James spluttered indignantly, but Lily shook her head. “Shut up, Potter. We’re assuming that if there’s an antidote, Severus knows it.”

“Most likely,” Dorcas conceded. “And he’s the only potioneer close enough that we can go to for information.”

“So,” Lily finished, “We have to figure out a way to work it out of him, assuming he won’t give it to us willingly.”

James grinned. “Aye, I like where this is going.”

Marlene jumped in. “So, we could blackmail him.”

“Scare him?”

“Threaten to hurt him.”

“ _Actually_ hurt him.”

“Bribe him.”

“Use force…”

“Send a spy —”

“Set up a ruse.”

“Seduce him —”

Remus stared at them. They were tossing ideas back and forth, and it was like watching a ten sided ping pong game that had no intention of slowing down. Their eyes were glowing now, all disagreements forgotten as they plotted out a million ways to get the information out.

“Enough!” Remus burst in, and they looked up in surprise as though they’d entirely forgotten he was there.

“Aye, we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” the bald girl snickered. “Plus, we all know what the best option is.” They nodded in agreement, and then all spoke at the same time.

To nobody’s surprise, they all said entirely different things. The bald girl snickered again

“Oh, come off it,” Lily said tiredly. “We all know I’m the only one who’s going to be able to get it out of him.” She looked somewhat reluctant, but at the same time she seemed to glow with anticipation.

“Aye,” the mousy boy squeaked. “We’re going for seducing him, then?”

James growled. Lily laughed.

“Something like that,” she said. “We’ll find the antidote. I promise you that. We aren’t going to let Snow Black die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess whattt I finally finished writing this! I'll be posting one chapter a day until the end :)


	10. Chapter 10

“The only problem with your plan,” Dorcas said slowly, “Is that we don’t know for certain if Snivellus actually has the antidote.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked. She glanced over at Snow Black as she spoke, and Remus couldn’t help but follow her gaze. He looked almost peaceful, asleep as he was, or in a coma — Remus wasn’t entirely sure. He wondered briefly if Snow Black could hear them talking. He wondered if Snow Black could still feel, could smell the pine that drifted through the air and see light behind his eyelids.

“We have one chance at this,” Dorcas continued. “If we go there and he doesn’t know the antidote, he’ll be suspicious of you Lily, and then its blown. You won’t be able to go back again after that, or he’ll know something’s up.”

“But if it was an accident…” Lily began, trailing off at Prongs's glare.

“We don’t know that, and we can’t take that chance.”

“So what do you suggest we do?”

“Stakeout,” Remus cut in. “I can go hide around the shop, see if there’s anyone there. I can try to eavesdrop and see if I can figure anything out.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Dorcas snorted. “You aren’t going to figure anything out from hanging around the shop. Besides, there’ll be wanted posters everywhere for you once people find you gone from the castle and they’ll put out search parties. They’ll —”

“I don’t care,” Remus cut them off quickly. “I don’t intend to live in hiding. I’m going to find Snivellus or whatever you called him, and I’m going to figure this out.”

“Don’t —”

“He’s not going to give up,” Prongs cut her off with an almost amused grin. “Can’t you tell? He’s stubborn, this one, especially when it comes to Snow Black.” Remus began to interrupt indignantly, but Prongs forestalled him with a finger. “Anyways, it’s a good idea, no? He goes in, tries to figure some stuff out. He inevitably fails, Lily swoops in later. Works well enough, aye?”

With a sigh, Lily twisted her hair back into a knot, closing her eyes momentarily.

“Fine,” she said. “Okay, fine, that works. Remus, you know where the market is, I assume?”

Remus nodded — he’d been there shopping enough times, suffered through enough stifling trips to know more about the market than he’d ever wanted to know.

“Severus has a stall down at the end. You’ll know it when you see it, it’s sketchy like.”

Remus nodded, pulling his hood down over his head. Walking to the market, everything finally came crashing down on Remus. The war he’d waged in his mind for years came back full force, trying to pull him back to the castle with every step and casting a leaden weight into his feet.

But he also felt free for the first time. Free to move through the forest as he liked, to run with no ulterior motives and to stop so he could breathe in the pine. So he pushed on, through the trees, all the way to the market.

He was perusing the stalls when he first saw the man. The man was was lurking next to a corner shop that sold armor, hair cropped close to his head, jet-black and even. It was like seeing a strange mirror image of Snow Black — a mirror underwater, distorted and strange, but similar nonetheless. Remus approached him carefully, making sure his face was covered all the while.

“I have to speak with you,” he whispered into the man’s ear. “Follow me. Please follow me.”

To his surprise, the man listened, and Remus could hear the heavy footsteps behind him despite the clamor of the market.

“What do you want?” he asked, when they were safely settled away behind one of the stalls.

“Do you know Snow Black?” The man froze up at that, muscles tightened, jaw closed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, the words bitten through clenched teeth.

“You do,” Remus said. His suspicions were immediately confirmed by the tense set of his face. Rigid, hard. Frozen.

“Even if I did,” the man spat out, “He’s dead now. None of it matters, and I won’t talk to you about it, understand? Now clear out and don’t come find me again.”

“He’s not dead. You know he isn’t.”

The man stayed where he was, just as stiff as before.

“I’m trying to help him,” Remus said quietly. “Anything you tell me that could be of the slightest help — anything at all — please.”

“Why should I trust you?”

There was a long pause where the man stared at him, where Remus wondered what to do from under the safety of a long-cast shadow that the hood provided him. And then Remus pulled down the heavy fabric, letting the light catch his face like he knew it would.

“I’m the Prince,” he said, just as evenly. “I’m on the run, the same as Snow Black was. I won’t break your trust because if I did, you now have information about my location and where I went.”

Another long pause, punctuated only by the hubbub in the market behind them. And then —

“I’m his brother,” the man said: quickly, quietly.

Remus nodded, unsurprised because of the similarity reflected on the man’s face. “What do you know?”

“I let Sirius escape in the first place.”

“Okay, well who’s Severus? Why did he attempt to kill — or why did he put Snow Black into a coma?”

The man looked away at that. “He found out Sirius was alive. I overheard him talking to Sir Black, who ordered him to kill Sirius, with poison of course, that’s what he’s best at.”

“Then why didn’t he die? He should have, shouldn’t he have?”

“He should have,” the man said fiercely, “But I switched the poison.”

“You _what?”_

The man looked around frantically, impatient. His hand strayed to the sword slung on his hip. “Look, I’m a trained assassin, okay? I know my way around potions well enough. There’s a similar potion, one that looks the same, has a similar smell, but it doesn’t kill.”

“So you switched them?”

“Exactly,” The man said quietly. “Is he okay?”

“He’s alive for now,” Remus said. “How long will the potion you gave knock him out for? Will he — will he die eventually?”

“No. All in all, he should be safe until he gets the antidote.”

“What’s the antidote?”

“I don’t have it,” Regulus hissed, “And I’m done helping Sirius, okay? Leave me out of this.”

“At least tell me what the antidote looks like,” Remus begged. “That’s all I need. Please, just tell me what it looks like.”

“It’s called argoil. Red and blue leaves, crushed, one spoon’s worth is all it should take. It’ll be a week after you give it to him before he wakes up.”

“Thank you,” Remus breathed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” the man said, “And don’t bring me into this again, understand? We never had this conversation, and we’ve never met each other before. Just — just keep him safe, and keep _me_ out of it.”

“I’ll do my best,” Remus whispered, pulling up his hood and letting shadows envelop him once more. “I’ll do my best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't like this chapter, but I already rewrote it once so oh well!


	11. Chapter 11

Lily’s reaction to the news was to declare that they go to Severus’s shop immediately.

“We don’t want to waste any time,” she murmured. “They’re already starting to look for you, Prince. Wormy was lurking around the castle yesterday and heard them talking about it.”

“Aye,” the small boy nodded. “They’ll be sending out search parties soon enough. The official statement is that you got kidnapped, it is.”

Remus looked away. The guilt that was threaded into his stomach tugged at him. _You’re running away from your duty,_ it told him. _You’re abandoning the people that need you. You had power to help, and you threw it away because you wanted adventure._

He took a deep breath, exhausted and unsure, smelling the pine and the scent of dew that he’d only recently learned. He looked over at Snow Black, still a statue chiseled out of ice. Unmoving. And then he looked back at Lily.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked, drawing his cloak tighter around him, mind made up.

She grinned at him. “That’s what I like to hear. Come on, then, let’s get moving.”

So that’s exactly what they did. When they got to the shop,  Lily went in first. She was the bait, the one who had to gain his trust — which she already had, a million times over — and use it to her advantage. Sweet talk him, as she said.

She couldn’t be the one to ask for the antidote, because then his guards would immediately go up and he would know it was just to save Snow Black. She had to stay in his good books, as it were.

So she strolled into the shop, leaning against the counter and pushing her hair back from her face. She was keeping it long, red and shining despite the dark pallor of the shop.

“Severus,” she said, pasting a smile onto her face. He fell for it, perhaps because he so desperately wanted it to be real, and he gave her a smile back, leaning on his own side of the counter. “We haven’t talked in such a long time, besides business.” 

Remus was impressed at the way her voice fell so easily into a different cadence — she said it as though she _missed_ it, like she wanted to talk to him. Like she hadn’t been slowly brushing him off after a few sketchy deals that even _she_ couldn’t wrap her head around — poisoning Snow Black, for one.

“Your gang doesn’t like me,” he muttered, rough and oily. He leaned forward over the counter. “Especially the Potter boy.”

Lily frowned, shrugged. “I don’t like him much either. He’s arrogant and self-serving and doesn’t have much skill, when it comes down to it. Mostly all he does is mess around and take credit for things he’d never have the ability to accomplish on his own.”

Severus seemed to brighten up at that. “Is there anything I can help you with?” he asked politely.

“No, no,” Lily laughed, waving him off. Then her voice got lower and quieter. “I just… wanted to see you.” They stared at each other for a minute, deep and long. Sirius would have believed it too, with the intensity of the stare. He would have agreed there was something between them, if not for the fingers that Lily arranged behind her back.

His signal.

It was easy to shift his persona back into place, cold commanding words and confident strides, orders instead of questions and questions instead of answers.

He walked into Severus’s stand without a hint of hesitation, like he’d been here a million times and practically owned the place.

“You poisoned Snow Black,” he said vehemently, taking a stand. He crossed his arms, and made a show of scanning the shop. His eyes landed on Lily, and she frowned. There wasn’t even a hint of a shine in her eyes to show that it was all fake. If not for the fingers behind her back, he’d never have known.

“Who’s this?” Remus asked, glaring at Lily, and she stared back at him defiantly. 

“A friend,” Severus said smoothly, and Lily shot him a smile. It was perfect. The acting, the staging, all of it. So much so that Sirius almost questioned Lily’s loyalty. 

“You poisoned Snow Black,” Remus repeated.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, still just as suave as before. “I would never poison anybody. I merely work with potions. Isn’t Snow Black dead, anyways?”

“Merely work with potions,” Remus mocked, scoffing. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I just took a look around, would you? If I sent in an inspector? Looked at your license?”

Severus shut his eyes tight, and when he opened them again, Remus almost convinced himself that there was a hint of red. “What do you want?” he sneered.

“The antidote.”

“I don’t have it,” Severus shot back. “I was under orders to poison him, and that’s what I did. You can ask the Black Family if you have any further questions.”

“Give. Me. The. Antidote.”

Then, after a silence that was too long for Remus’s tastes, Severus pulled a small bottle out from under the cabinet and handed it over with another deep sneer. Remus took it, inspecting it closely. It looked nothing like what Snow Black’s brother had described — instead it was a murky liquid, deep brown.

He looked up at Lily. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly, but Remus didn’t need to see it. He could tell from the frantic look in her eyes and the color of the potion Severus had handed him.

“This isn’t it,” Remus spat, letting anger creep into his tone and posture, towering over Severus in the way that he’d practiced to be intimidating. “You really think you can get away with giving me a false antidote?”

Severus frowned. “That’s it. The real thing. What would you know about potions?”

“Don’t question my knowledge,” Remus proclaimed, bluffing his way through it in the way only he could. “I’m going to search you and your shop until I find the antidote, unless you hand it over _now_.”

Now, there was a flicker of fear in Severus’s eyes, the one he’d been waiting for. _Good._

“Snow Black shouldn’t even be alive,” Severus hissed. “He should have died, and I have no idea why he didn’t.”

Remus bared his teeth at Severus. He knew what it would mean if Snow Black lived. Severus was under orders from the Black family to kill Snow Black, and if he got away, Severus would surely be killed. 

Remus could tell from the way the potioneer didn’t meet his eyes that it was a bluff — he knew exactly what Snow Black’s brother had done, and he knew exactly what the antidote was. But it was obvious he would stop at nothing to keep the antidote safe.

“You’re lying,” Remus said coldly. He had no qualms about this, for whatever reason — al he wanted was to keep Snow Black safe.

Lily leaned up on her tiptoes, whispering something right in Severus’s ear. This was the make it or break it moment, when Severus would trust her or balk, would agree or call their bluff. After a tense silence, he gave Lily a nod that he probably thought was small, but that Remus could easily see. _Good._

“Search the shop,” he said tersely to Remus. “You’ll see there’s nothing here.”

Remus made a show of turning back, rummaging through bottles and pretending not to notice when Severus snuck another bottle into Lily’s hand, pretending not to see when Lily snuck out the back door. He waited ten minute, ten agonizing minutes of pretending he knew what he was looking for, and then he turned furiously to Severus.

“It isn’t here.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Severus sneered. “I told you it wasn’t here.”

Remus walked up to Severus, itching to run, to find out if Lily had gotten it, but he had to play his part.

“I’ll get that antidote if it’s the last thing I do, Snape,” he whispered, close enough that he could smell the curl of potions that emanated from Snape. And then turned on his heel and stalked out the door. The second he was outside, he began to run. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayy another chapter :)


	12. Chapter 12

“Did you get it?” he gasped between bursts of air as he barrelled into the campsite after Lily. He wasn’t used to running, and apparently his lungs weren’t all too happy about the sudden change. “Did it work?”

“Like a charm,” she said with a wink, raising the bottle in triumph. She didn’t look tired in the slightest, even after running, and Remus tried to hide the sheen of sweat he could feel dripping down the back of his neck. “I told him I’d keep the antidote safe so you wouldn't find it. He trusts far too easily, it seems.”

“Nah, Snivellus is just in love with you,” James scoffed, kicking sourly at the dirt, but Lily ignored him. Almost as if she was used to his complaints. 

“Well, what are we waiting for then?” Remus asked, his eyes fixing back on the corpse. Frozen, even though the filtering sunlight spread over him and lit up his already pale skin.

“His brother said it would take a week after we gave him the antidote, aye?” Dorcas chipped in. 

“Yeah,” Remus said quietly. “A week. So the sooner we give it to him, the sooner he’ll be able to wake up.”

They approached him, still sprawled in that eerily crooked way. His arm was turned just so, his eyes closed — but somehow it still looked like he was watching them from underneath his closed eyes.

They tipped the vial towards his mouth, glistening clear against the too-bright-red of his mouth. But Snow Black didn’t stir.

Somewhere deep inside, Remus had been half expecting him to move, to stand up, to smile around at them all. Of course he didn’t — Remus shouldn’t have been disappointed, because it was a ridiculous expectation after all — but the bend of his arm and the complete stillness that a living person would never be able to accomplish sent chills through Remus nonetheless.

* * *

From somewhere in another world, everything started to sharpen and clear, condensing into a focus. Everything was dark around him — not a hint of light, not a silhouette like he could usually make out when his eyes adjusted to the dark, not a hint of light through his eyelids.

Everything had gone entirely dark for Sirius, and he found he didn’t mind at the moment.

The first thing he realized was that he could hear. The world around him was crisp and filled with noise, from the rustle of what must’ve been leaves to footsteps crunching around him with varying degrees of heaviness and varying kilters.

And then the voices, cutting through what was otherwise surprisingly soothing.

“So now we wait.” That was Lily — he knew that, he could tell from the clear cut confidence, could picture her flaming read hair and intimidating pose.

“Now we wait.”

That voice. If he’d been able to move, he would’ve jerked his head around to see the face, or perhaps he would have frozen in place, because there was no doubt that he knew exactly who that was even without eyes. The Prince.

Prince Lupin.

“We can’t stay here.” Another voice, this time one that Sirius wasn’t certain about. Perhaps it was one of the other tramps who he hadn’t gotten enough of a chance to be acquainted with. Alice, perhaps, or maybe Frank. If those were their names. He couldn’t quite remember.

“Why not?”

“They’re going to be looking for him.” There was a shuffling of footsteps, and Sirius could ony assume they were talking about the Prince. “He ran away from the castle, there’ll be people everywhere and there’s no way we’ll be safe.”

“The guards won’t catch us,” James scoffed, and his voice was loud even against the forest backdrop. “They never have.”

“Trust me, they’re going to be sending _everyone.”_

“I’ll leave.” Prince Lupin again, undoubtedly, easy to tell because of the contradiction in his voice. Honey, easy and confident, but shaking deep down underneath.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll go back to the castle,” he said, and there was such defeat in his voice that Sirius wanted to yell and tell him to stay, but he couldn’t because every part of him was stuck in place, no more useful than one of the trees, and even less mobile.

There was a silence, and it seemed more profound than usual — probably because Sirius couldn’t distract himself with other details, like blinking eyes and shuffling feet. There was only an oppressive blackness and a silence.

“You’ll go back.” A statement, not a question. Sirius could pay more attention to these things — to the cadence, to the tone, to everything that dealt with hearing instead of sight.

“I should anyways. I have a duty to the people.”

Sirius hated to hear these words, because they were the same things that had kept _him_ at home for far too long. Duty. Duty to his family, responsibility to uphold the name of the Blacks. Duty to continue being beautiful.

But he couldn’t say anything.

“Why did you come here in the first place?”

Silence again. Not complete silence, because the air wasn’t a hollow nothingness, but quiet. Only the wind, the occasional bird, other sounds he couldn’t quite place.

“To get away,” he said finally.

“Then it’s stupid to go back.”

“Maybe.”

Sirius was already starting to feel restless from where his limbs and body were entirely locked, unmoving and pressed against each other, skin against skin. He couldn’t get away from himself. He was fastened at the seams of his body. Stuck, stuck, _stuck._

“How would you explain your disappearance?”

Sirius desperately wanted to see the expressions, but he couldn’t. He was _stuck_ with the darkness — something he should be used to but somehow wasn’t.

“I can make something up.”

Sirius felt like he was listening to a mirror version of himself as the Prince spoke, somebody who was stuck in the same awful predicament. _I can make something up_ , he'd said. Sirius had spent half his life doing the same exact thing, making things up, excuses, excuses.

Excuse after excuse. Time after time.

"Why would you go back, after you came here to escape?"

There was a long pause. They were even more infuriating than real life, and Sirius had never hated being stuck in limbo more than now. He wanted to scream at Remus that he was making a terrible mistake.

But he couldn't. He couldn't even move.

"I don't want to be a burden on you," Remus said matter-of-factly. "And besides, I have a duty. I can't stay here. Snow Black is taken care of, everything is okay now."

"Right," Prongs scoffed, and the disdain was evident. "Right, everything is okay. Listen, you obviously care about Snow Black, for whatever reason, and you have the most leverage out of all us."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that if we run into trouble, you have the greatest likelihood of getting us out of trouble. You're the Prince, after all."

"We gave him the antidote though," Prince Lupin protested. "He's fine. You don't need me."

"You think he's fine." It was the voice of the bald girl - Dorcas, was it? - and she sounded serious. "We don't know that. We have to take him somewhere safe now that Snivellus knows he's alive, anyways. He'll be looking for us. You aren't the reason we're going to have to leave. You aren’t a burden.“

"You want me to run away with you?"

Sirius wanted to scream yes, wanted to pry his mouth open and make up for all the moments of silence he'd ever partaken in. But he couldn't, and he promised himself that he'd never do this again, stay silent when he had the option to talk.

"Yes," Lily said simply. "We want you to run away with us."

"Why?"

"Because it'll give us leverage," the bald girl snorted. "It isn't that we care for you, it's that we care for your power."

To his surprise, Sirius could make out a quiet laugh that he placed as Remus's. He had expected something like a retort or an angry remark, but instead Remus just laughed.

"Will you be happy if you go back to the castle?" That was another of the voices Sirius couldn't recognize. "Will you be content with a life of royalty, knowing that you could be out here in the wild?"

Another long pause. Sirius could practically hear the thoughts racing through Remus's mind, thoughts that had been reflected in his own a million times. He vaguely considered the possibility that they could've been thinking the same thing at the same time, at some point. That they could have been on opposite sides of the land, not knowing the other existed, longing for an escape that might would ever come.

“No,” Remus said. “Probably not.”

Sirius would have sighed in relief if that was possible, but instead he stayed there. Unseeing, unmoving.

Just listening. Just existing. Just alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will you look at me, being awful at posting...


	13. Chapter 13

Remus was notorious for not being able o make up his mind, and he knew it. But he also couldn't help it -- the darkness surrounding him, the rustle of the leaves that he'd somehow grown used to, all of it surrounded him. There was a soft snoring drifting over him, bodies sprawled together. The night was cold, bone cold, and he didn't mind it exactly.

The stars glimmered above him. He felt free, so much more free than he'd felt in a long time, and he hated it.

It only made him think about what his parents would say. All the people who weren't lucky like him, all the people he was supposed to be helping. He had the luck to be born into royalty. To be born as a Prince. And he was giving that up for a dream.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't stay here. He couldn’t run around in the dirt when he could be using his power to _help_ these people. His life wasn’t about himself — it was about them.

He wasn’t sure if it was his body that led him out of the camp that night, because he didn’t know himself. Somehow after all these years, he’d only managed to split his mind into fragments that all yearned in different directions, that fought for control of his body.

Maybe leaving was a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was. Even so, he'd made plenty of those in his time — the Incident, his mind supplied readily, something he preferred not to think about. The coverups and explanations, the threats, the harsh conversation that stayed behind doors and were shut there with steel locks, dissolving into civil prepared statements as soon as the doors clicked open.

It was still dark when he arrived at the castle, and he breathed in the night air, feeling it as it traveled into his body. _Alive_ , it breathed to him. _You're alive,_ it whispered.

_Alive. Alive. Alive._

He thought of Snow Black, lying frozen somewhere in the woods, unable to move or speak. A mystery in and of himself, another lost soul who ran away from his home.

He thought of the repercussions that would follow if he went back to the castle, of the tedious explanations and apologies, of the silk cloak that encompassed royal life.

He thought of it and then thought of the feel that dirt had coating his feet and sticking to the skin. He breathed again.

_Alive. Alive._

And he walked through the castle door, because this was what he knew. He wasn't made to rebel. He could follow orders, because that didn't take thought. He could follow orders and help people, he could be the Prince that people wanted, and he could forget about the carefree travelers that lived in the woods and traded crowns for money.

They didn't have to be part of his life anymore.

There were guards at the front door. More than usual, looking more alert than they usually did as well. On orders, Remus supposed, or under pain of punishment after he'd escaped.

Apparently his departure had more of an impact than he'd intended.

When they saw Remus, they went stiff, a group of hands immediately straying to the weapons on their hips. They stared at him, and then one opened their mouth to speak, and then they were on him.

They dragged him out of the cloak that night provided him, they took him into the light where royalty could shine on him, even with the loss of his crown. They scrutinized him, questioned him, yelled at him.

Remus absorbed it all.

This is what he was born to do. He should be grateful. This was what he was _born_ to do.

_Alive. Alive. Alive._

They dragged him into the castle, a prisoner in his own realm, and he went with them without a fight, feeling the heavy grip of armor against his skin.

He thought about Snow Black, about his piercing eyes and soft skin that seemed to glow even in the dark.

And he let himself be dragged into the castle, trying to remember the grace he'd been taught.

"Remus." The voice was scarily even, even coming from his mother, who was trained in the professional art of calm, if there was such a thing.

"Queen Hope," he said, not willing to take any chances and refer to her by any other name. Displeasing her was the last thing he wanted to do, especially when she was staring at him with no emotion in her eyes.

"Prince Lupin." That was his father voice, harsh, the words enunciated carefully, perhaps to emphasize his role and remind him what his place was in this society. Remus didn't react. He knew there was a long way to go yet.

"King Lyall," he said, bowing his head in deference, resenting the grip of the guards that was still tight around his arm, enough to cause a tinge of pain to cloud his words.

"How nice to see you again." It wasn't sarcastic in the normal sense, not a difference in tone to signify the slightest mocking, but Remus knew better than that.

This was how they spoke. It was sarcasm, plain and clear, and it rang through his voice nonetheless.

"I apologize for my absence," Remus said. Formal was the only way to go in this situation, because anything else would inevitably backfire. He didn't have other options.

He knew how those turned out, after the Incident.

"Your apology is received," his mother said. Her voice didn't betray a thing, but it didn't need to, because her face was sheet white, her eyes squinted, hands clenched at her sides. "And yet, not understood."

They stared at him, the guards still pinning his arms to his sides. It reminded him of Snow Black, of the way he was stuck. Stuck with his hands pinned, like Remus, frozen like ice, but still alive.

_Alive. Alive. Alive._

"Are you going to explain?" his father asked. He didn't bother to mask his voice, and that was almost worse. There wasn't anger, not worry.

Just disappointment.

"I'll explain," Remus said quietly, "I can explain."

His father stared down at him, waiting. His mother stood to the side, waiting.

The guards held him still, waiting.

"I had to leave," Remus said slowly, "to take care of a beggar situation."

King Lyall stared. There was no change in his face, not even a twitch. It stayed the same, cold and hard disappointment.

"Don't lie to me," he said, slowly, saying each word with a pause in between.

"Hear him out, Lyall," Hope said, always willing to give extra pause on the situation.

"Right," Lyall sneered. "That'll do us good. For all I know, he was off with that boy again."

"I wasn't —“

"Is that why you were ignoring the girls at the ball?" he raged onwards. The knights shifted uncomfortably next to him, hands shifting and twisting his skin. "Is it because you're still with that boy? Are you in love with him, is that it? You ran off? You're going to refuse to get married to a girl?”

Remus was frozen in his place. None of the words he was saying were true, not one of them, but they pinned him in place as effectively as the guards. Memories revived. Long-lost feelings flooding back.

He didn't know how to deny it when it could so easily be true.

Fabian. The Incident. Something he could never run too far from, because in the royal court, there was no such thing as putting the past behind you.

"What was his name again?" King Lyall asked, voice scalding and burning. He stared at Remus as though his suspicion had already been confirmed, as though he knew it was accurate and Remus was already nailed down.

“Fabian.” That was his mother, voice still even but now shaking. Her hands were shaking too, fists at her side but still shaking.

"It wasn't that," Remus said desperately, finding his voice again. "Not that at all."

"Really?" King Lyall asked, and he was stalk still as well, looming over Remus. "Are you sure about that? You weren't off snogging some boy and shirking your duties?"

These weren't questions, they were merely accusations, and Remus knew it. He was in trouble, bigger trouble than he'd possibly ever been in his life, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to escape from it.

"It wasn't a boy," Remus whispered quietly, and he wondered in the back of his mind if that was the best excuse. If, perhaps, he should go along with it and pretend it was true.

"Do you have a better explanation then?"

Remus was silent. His brain wasn't working. He hadn't thought ahead. He could never think ahead, could never make decisions, and it was coming back to bite him now. He either pushed things to the back of his mind, or he did them without a second thought.

"No," he said finally, quietly. He was admitting to it, because he was exhausted, because it was an explanation they could believe.

"Then why did you come back?" Hope asked. Her voice was softer, almost like she cared, but Remus knew better than that. She didn't care about him. She cared about the image.

"I realized what I was doing was wrong," Remus said blandly.

"Did you not realize that after last time?" Lyall spat, staring him down. "Did you not learn your lesson? You said it would never happen again, and then you come up with this. Do you have any excuses at all, or is this it."

"I don't have any excuses," Remus said quietly. He'd be punished for this, he knew that, but perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps this was what he needed to teach him he shouldn't run away from the kingdom.

"Go upstairs." That was Hope. There was no use arguing. He didn't know what he'd argue about, anyways, so he listened to her without another word.

He sat in his bedroom, staring at the wall decorated with expensive trim and wallpaper that had been there for years upon years. He sat on the silk sheets, back to the horrifyingly extravagant life that threatened to purge him in the first place.

They tried to pull him in, once again, and this time he didn't resist.

He had to be done with adventure. He had to let it go from his life, lest it consume him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finished writing this story, had second thoughts, started rewriting it, and now my stupid characters are making it way longer than I intended :)


	14. Chapter 14

When Remus awoke the next morning it was to the clamor of voices spilling over him. They were loud and brash, not of the explicitly royal sort — not somebody he usually heard around the castle.

"Have you seen him here?"

It was on the verge of yelling, and Remus trailed quietly out of his room, leaving the door propped open in case he had to make a quick getaway.

"There hasn't been anybody of the sort." That was Hope, calm as always. When Remus thought about it, he didn't think he'd ever seen her show any real kind of emotion — never had he seen her cry, never angry, unless it was for the benefit of the kingdom. Then, she could draw on a hidden reserve of tears, let them streak lines over her face.

She was a true master at vieling her emotions, and she hid away so completely that he wondered if she actually felt or if she was just a shell, waiting and watching as things happened around her.

"Are you certain?"

 _That_ was anger. Anger, loud and clear.

Then there was a quiet whisper, so low that Remus wasn't sure he caught it. He probably wouldn't have heard if it wasn't for the lilt of his own name, alerting him immediately like an alarm drawing him to the source. He jerked his head up at the word, craning his neck as though being able to see might enhance his hearing.

"Maybe that's who Remus was with." It was so soft, from Lyall to Hope.

Then there was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs and before he could do anything, a guard was dragging him down the stairs, coming to rest beside the King and Queen. They both stood completely straight, as though they were hindered by metal plates of armor as well, looking down on him as he joined them.

When Remus saw who was at the door, he almost froze — almost let his shock show on his face. Evidently, he’d picked up bad habits in the few days he'd been gone.

"Hello," he said instead, keeping his manner as pleasant as he could. "How are you?"

"Remus," Hope said. She cut in before Lyall could, maybe to keep the conversation less than accusatory, if that was at all possible. "It's good that you're here. Do you know who this is?"

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," Remus said. Measured, he reminded himself. In the corner of his mind, there was one word spinning on repeat.

_Lie. Lie. Lie._

Of course he knew who it was. He knew immediately, and it wasn't just the uncanny resemblance or strange beauty. It was the look in his eyes, the dangerous second before someone was about to pounce.

The look of the hunt was gleaming over every inch of his face, every part of his perfect skin and glowing eyes.

"This is Sir Black," Lyall said harshly. "Father of Snow Black."

"Ah," Remus said, trying to look as though this was news to him, uncertain he was able to pull it off well. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

He held out his hand and Sir Black shook it. His grip was hard, knuckles bony and gripping, palms sweaty against Remus’s. When he finally let go after a second too long, Remus felt a shiver running all the way up his arm, goosebumps trailing in its wake.

"Same goes to you," Sir Black said smoothly. There was still the underlying anger, but now it was portrayed in the manner of a noble, with a tilt of his head that was somehow aggressive. Predatory.

"To what do I owe this visit?" Remus asked, a note of panic thrumming through him when he realized the visit could only really mean one thing.

“Snow Black has gone missing," Hope said. He could see the three pairs of eyes scrutinizing him in his periphery, and wondered if there were more people watching him from the back. Guards, quietly listening in on the going abouts of the castle, picking up on gossip that they’d be forbidden to discuss.

"Snow Black? I thought Snow Black had passed.”

He carefully constructed his face as he spoke. They were still watching him.

"That's what we thought as well," Sir Black said impatiently. "It turns out he's run away instead, and we're searching for him."

"I'm very sorry this happened," Remus said, trying to look politely confused. They hadn’t caught him yet at least. "Is there something I can help you with?"

That's when King Lyall took the reins again, staring Remus down.

"We were wondering if you'd seen him at all." There was so much more implied beyond those words, things that he couldn't say in present company, things that were unlikely to be spoken even in private.

But Remus heard the questions lingering behind. _Were you with him? Was he like the other boy? Where is he now, and why is it that both your disappearances just so happened to coincide?_

Remus's heart was beating loud enough that it was a constant pulse in his ears. A clock perhaps, or more like a time bomb, ticking down the hours until it would rupture. He tried to ignore that tattooing pulse, but he couldn't.

It was ever-present. He couldn't stop it.

He couldn't stop the images of Snow Black that flooded his mind. Not just his frozen body and unseeing expression, but him turning up at the ball, him pretending to be a beggar. The light in his eyes.

"I've never seen him, I'm afraid." Remus directed his answer at Sir Black, unwilling to take the risk of looking at his father. His father had a much greater chance of seeing through the lie, and he couldn't risk to put Snow Black in jeopardy after all this.

"That's unlucky," Sir Black said sadly. It wasn't really sad, though, it was danger and anger concealed under a guise. "We've put out search parties of course, so if you don't mind, we'll be searching the castle."

King Lyall raised one eyebrow. "You don't believe us?"

"I'm not willing to take any chances," Sir Black said simply. "I'm sure you'll understand that I have to be thorough when it comes to my son. I'm certain you would do the same."

Remus was almost certain they wouldn't.

"Of course," Hope said swiftly. "The castle will welcome your search, and we'll aid you in any way possible. Is there anything else we can do for you, Sir Black?"

"No," he said, equally calm, with a nod of respect. "Thank you. We're of course searching the forest as well, and putting out a bounty."

"Of course," King Lyall said. He was staring directly at Remus when he said it, like he knew there was a lie somewhere buried inside him, but Remus's mind was far away again. He couldn't stop the way it ran, the way adventure was already trying to break him down when the walls he'd put up were fragile enough. He wondered if he should warn them. He wondered if he should go find Snow Black.

He wondered what would happen if he did. He could do it — he knew where to find them, deep within the woods. He knew where they were. He knew how to navigate now.

 _You can't abandon the kingdom again,_ one side of his brain screamed at him.

 _You can't abandon the people who helped you. You can't abandon Snow Black._ That was the other side, screaming with equal force, his heart chiming in and trying to lure him back towards the woods, to the tilt of trees and branches, unidentifiable plants and a spread of dirt.

He knew he shouldn't do it. He'd come back for a reason. He couldn't keep following his heart whenever it changed allegiances and expect for everything to work out. He had to make a decision and stick with it, he had to shoot down everything that tried to lead him astray again.

On the other hand, he wasn't sure how much longer he could live as a Prince. It was a life he had never been cut out for.

Snow Black was in danger. And Remus was an idiot, anyways.

 _This is your last chance,_ his brain warned him, and for what felt like the first time, both sides of his brain were entirely in unison. _Whatever you choose now, it's something you're going to have to stick with. Wherever you go to stay, that's where you're going to be for good._

_If you stay at the castle, you live your life as a Prince like you were always destined to do._

_If you run away with Snow Black and the tramps, that's your life. There's no running back to a royal life when things get too hard._

Remus stared out the window, at the forest and alluring wave of the trees. Even when the wind wasn't blowing, they still moved in a sinuous dance, and Remus wasn't sure how they didn't have the same impact on everybody who stared at them. He wondered if everyone was lured into this same trance, if they all had to make a decision between breaking free and giving into the dance.

Remus, Remus had never been strong. He'd always listened to orders, and right now the trees were silently yelling with a strength that was hard to ignore, a plea, beckoning him back to their depths.

So Remus did what he'd wanted to do from the beginning. He waited until nightfall. It wasn’t far away, only a few tedious hours of watching the castle be stripped from top to bottom, of putting on his best face of conviction and insisting that he’d never seen Snow Black in his life.

And then he ran, for the second time in so many weeks.

Remus ran into the forest and reveled at the way the whole expanse of leaves seemed to come together at the top, forming a ceiling of trees that closed him in. He liked this feeling of being closed in. He wasn't stuck in a room with silk sheets anymore. He was stuck in a forest of dirt and leaves, of creatures, of insects, of more life than the castle had ever contained.

As he ran through the forest, he wondered how it was possible that he'd ever decided to go back to the castle. It was like he'd finally accepted who he was supposed to be. Finally accepted that perhaps his destiny wasn't what he was born to be, but instead what he was made to be.

Remus ran through the forest. He found them on the brink of leaving, the campsite swept perfectly into nonexistence. Leaves scattered randomly, tents wrapped up, people gathered in a small huddle.

"Wait!" Remus yelled out. They spun around when they saw him, and there was a clamor of shouting, of searching eyes and mutters that traveled around the circle.

"Where’d you go?"

“Aye, what were you thinking, leaving without telling us?"

Remus couldn't help but smile, because even though the sound of their voices felt too loud against the relative silence of the forest, it was a melody he never wanted to let go of.

"I'm back now," he said calmly, taking in Snow Black's figure, still a statue that was unnaturally still. "Sir Black is on the move. He's looking for Snow Black now, and he's coming to do a sweep of the forest soon enough. We have to move."

"That's what we're doing," Prongs snorted, gesturing around the campsite. "Are you coming, or you running off again?”

"Yeah," Remus said, hoisting a bag over his shoulder and taking one last look at Sirius's frozen corpse. "Yeah, I'm coming."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing to say


	15. Chapter 15

Sirius had gotten oddly used to living in this limbo. He couldn't move, but he'd grown accustomed to the feeling of not being able to react. It was almost a weight taken off his shoulders — unable to react.

He could hear, and as he'd quickly learned, he could still feel. He could feel as he was shifted around the campsite, passed between hands that had different feels, something he might not have noticed otherwise — sweaty, spindly, callused. He could hear as they packed up, the shifting of bags and murmurs amongst themselves about where the Prince could have gone.

When Sirius heard that, a lump appeared in his stomach. He was worried he knew what had happened, that the Prince had succumbed and gone back, or perhaps that he'd turned Sirius in, that Sirius would be dying soon.

Sirius didn't want to die.

Then he heard the Prince's voice again, and he almost sagged in relief. He tried to at least, until he remembered that was no longer possible in his state.

"Where are we going?" Sirius could feel himself being carried, the odd weightless feeling of instability, terrified he might fall. He wasn't sure who it was, and he couldn't tell by the hands that were gripping him. They were callused and strong, like most of them, but smaller than most.

So, Sirius reasoned, probably not the Prince. Lily, perhaps.

"Where are we going?" The Prince asked, voice sounding like it was trembling, like he wasn't entirely sure of himself. Prongs laughed. Their voices were slightly distorted while they moved, lurching in and out of volume as they moved and their distance to Sirius changed. He listened carefully because he had nothing better to do. "You think we have any idea what we're doing? Your guess is as good as ours, Prince boy."

"Fine," Prince Lupin said, "But we have to get out quickly. They're searching for Snow Black and they'll be searching for me soon enough. There'll be guards swarming us everywhere unless we get as far away as we can."

"Then that's what we'll do," Peter said simply and Sirius's legs shifted, twisting uncomfortably, like somebody else was taking over carrying him. "We have to make it at least a week while this lump of flesh recovers."

"Then what?"

"Then we live," Marlene said, something that sounded like it would be accompanied with a shrug. "We continue doing what we're doing."

"You think they'll give up looking for us?"

"I think if we're far enough away, it won't matter."

Sirius had a lot of unanswered questions about the strange dreamstate he was stuck in, but as the chatter and strange movement of his body rolled over him, one of them was answered. He could still sleep.

He drifted off as they traveled. It was odd - his vision didn't change at all, but he could still feel himself slipping off, something about the darkness almost getting softer, in a way.

When he awoke next, there was absolute chaos - yells splitting the air, himself being jostled in all directions, and a voice murmuring above him, softer hands holding on to him.

"Run! Split up and run!"

Sirius had absolutely no idea what was happening. Sirius didn't often get scared, for some reason. Perhaps he was too used to bad things happening to get scared, but _now_ he was scared.

Something about not being able to see, having no ability to react. He would give anything just to be able to see the sky, to know where exactly he was. He probably wouldn't be able to tell anyways, most likely surrounded by trees and the glare of the sun, but it didn't matter. He had a carnal desire, an instinct, a need to know where he was. He had to see. He had to know, he had to see, he had to to know.

But he couldn't. He could only feel the jostling, hear the pounding footsteps directly underneath him as someone ran, hear the panting above him and the grip on him grow sweaty. He could only sit, stiff as a board, wondering if he would end up being the reason for someone's demise. He could hear the trees, and it was no longer a rustling, but a constant whoosh of wind, only made louder by the sound of movement in his ears, the wind whipping past him as they ran.

"We're almost away," a voice panted out beside him. They stopped and started again, stopping, jolting, spinning and cutting back. Sirius got lost up in the whir of movement and noise, and wondered when he'd be able to exist fully again.

* * *

Remus was in full flight. It was hard for him to run carrying another person in his arms. Doubtless, he was the worst person out of all them to be carrying Snow Black — he had no clue how to look after himself in the forest, let alone someone else — but they hadn't had time to debate. The guards had been on them in seconds, no warning, in the dead of night.

They'd frantically split up with no other options, and now Remus was alone, running through the woods with Snow Black in his arms and desperately wishing to whoever was listening that this wasn't going to be his death day.

He didn't know where he was going. He wasn't sure if he should be trying to keep track of the trees as he ran by them. Making marks on the trees, wasn’t that something people did in adventure movies? He doubled back. Should he pick one direction or go randomly, stop or keep moving?

He wished that the rest of them were still here, but they weren't. They'd split up in a wild panic, something the tramps had obviously rehearsed, but Remus was hopelessly lost.

When he couldn't run a second longer, when the stitch in his side had spread all the way through him and into his heart, when his legs felt like the muscles were stretched to the breaking point, he finally stopped. He set Snow Black down on the ground, letting him sink back into the ground, making an impression in the dirt. He looked eerie lying there, like the mark of a dead man, unable to move.

Remus stared down at him and then collapsed to the ground himself, dropping his head into his hands.

And then he was laughing, uncontrollably, unable to start.

"Can you hear me?" he laughed, directing his words towards Snow Black. He felt absolutely ridiculous, but he also didn't care in the slightest. It didn't matter now, not with the trees whispering around him, with every loud noise meaning the possibility of capture, with his surroundings reminding him he'd run away,

Predictable, Snow Black didn't answer.

"I have no clue what I'm doing," Remus admitted. "I went back to the castle, you know. I couldn't make up my mind — I'm still wondering if that was the right choice, actually. I went back to the castle, and now I'm here again, and I still have absolutely no clue what I'm doing."

He sighed. It felt good to let the words spill out of him, even if they were reflecting off a body who couldn't hear and most definitely couldn't respond.

There was something cathartic about being able to just talk.

"I've always been broken like that, did you know? I never wanted to be a Prince, I always dreamed about running away. So then I did, but I thought it was a mistake. So I went back. But then I left again. What am I doing with my life?"

He broke down in laughter again, unable to resist himself, because everything about this situation was so completely hilarious.

"I don't know," he admitted. He was letting words roll off his tongue without thinking about it. "You ran away too, didn't you? Maybe we aren't so different, you and I."

Remus took a deep breath, trying to steel himself. He knew he was giving false calm to himself, but he'd long since learned that it was the only type of calm he'd be able to manage, and it was good enough for him.

"Yeah, you did. And then I did. I figure I may as well, because I wouldn't have been satisfied otherwise, you know? I would have regretted it."

He leaned back against the tree, staring at the board of Snow Black’s body, wondering if Regulus's antidote had been real or if it had been made up.

"But they hated me anyways, my parents. They thought I ran off with a boy, did you know that? I'm gay, of course, because that's just my luck. I had to get married to a girl. I would have done it too, because that was my duty. Why would I do that?"

Now it was just a stream of Remus's conscience running free, no barrier on it, nobody to hear except a still corpse of somebody he barely knew.

"But you see, this is the problem. I can't trust my own brain, because it changes so much. Sometimes I think fuck it, this is my only life, I should do what I want. But then the other half the time, I think that my duty is to the people, and I'm making a terrible mistake by running away."

He heaved a sigh and stared down at Snow Black again.

"I don't know anymore, but I guess I don't really have to. I've made up my mind now. I'm never going back to the castle. I'm gonna have to learn how to live on the run, I guess. It seems like you will too, if you ever wake up."

He was still fixed on Snow Black's face, somehow expecting a reaction even though he knew it was ridiculous. He was just so used to people shifting foot to foot, to small mannerisms and mumbled words of understanding. He was so used to reactions that Snow Black set him on edge.

The wind was still blowing, and no voices drifted through the air towards him.

"I hope you wake up," Remus laughed, staring down at him. "If you don't, I'll be on my own, and I'm not sure I can do that. I don't know what I'm doing."

No reaction, inevitably.

"Although I doubt you know either. You were part of a noble family too, weren't you? You probably wouldn't be much help." He paused again, still staring down at the body. "Even if you couldn't help, I'd still want you, you know. Two clueless people is always more fun than one."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is kinda trash but I wanted to post something?


	16. Chapter 16

It was the Prince, sitting next to him and talking to him, not knowing that Sirius was taking in every word he spoke.

Sirius was infinitely grateful to the Prince, even though he couldn't tell him, because he was quite certain he would have been bored out of his mind if not for the idle stream of chatter he was keeping up. And beside that, it felt like he was seeing a completely different part of the Prince; it was like he was getting a look straight into his mind, getting to see every vision that passed behind his eyes, getting to see every single thought spilled out loud into the air. It was almost refreshing, because there was such a truth in his voice.

After all, there was no reason to lie when you thought nobody was listening.

And then there were the strange similarities that happened to be between them. The families they wished they'd never grown up in, the running away, the uncertainty and rejection.

"Should we move on to another place?" the Prince asked. It seemed he'd gotten oddly used to talking out loud, and now it was his constant state. Sirius found himself wondering if Prince Lupin talked to inanimate objects before him. It was almost amusing to think about, a figure of such royalty spilling all his thoughts and wishes to something that couldn't hear or respond. Almost...sad. "I don't know. We should probably leave the forest, shouldn't we? They'll still be looking for us after all this."

He sighed and Sirius wanted to reach out and comfort him, because he hated the hopelessness that rang through his voice and every word he spoke.

"You know, I'm so glad I left. I love the trees, have I said that before? I used to hate them, because they were like this stupid unattainable world that I'd never be able to be a part of, but now they aren't. Now they're all around me, they're something that's entirely mine, you know? They almost sound like they're talking to me sometimes.

Sirius wanted to agree. The way they rustled was fascinating.

"But they speak their own language, and we're not a part of that. And it's so oddly irregular too, like they have a pattern that they don't intend to share with anybody else in the world. They understand each other, but that's all."

Sirius loved listening to the soft cadence in the Prince's voice, because it was as irregular as the mumbling of the trees. Sometimes he got sad and his voice fell, sometimes he got excited and talked so quickly Sirius could barely make out the words. Sometimes he would break up, say random words and fragments of sentences that he seemed to complete in his mind.

"I wish that I could disappear sometimes," the Prince laughed now. "But not really disappear, just make my body disappear. That way I wouldn't have to worry about any of... any of this."

He paused for a second, seeming to think to himself.

"Actually no. I wish everyone's body would disappear."

Another long pause.

"You would probably like that too, wouldn't you? Nobody can look at you without thinking about how beautiful you are, can they? I would hate that. It's like being a Prince, people never talk to you without an ulterior motive. For me, it's because I'm powerful, for you it's because you're beautiful."

Sirius wanted to agree, to shout into the air. He wanted to talk to Prince Lupin, because he understood Sirius without even talking to him.

"I hate meeting people who are beautiful," he laughed drily. "When I first saw you, it's all I could think about, and I'm careful about not judging people based on appearance. You tend to learn that in the noble world. But it's almost impossible, isn't it? Everything revolves around the physical."

He sighed and leaned back against the tree. "It's all so ridiculous. I hate that you're beautiful and that people love you because of that. I hate that I love how you look and I associate that with your personality. Why is that a thing? That shouldn't be a thing."

Prince Lupin was rambling now, as he usually did, going on and on and on. Sirius wondered if this was what it sounded like inside his brain, a monologue of questions and frustrations that he'd finally been able to let out into the world.

It was as though the Prince had heard him.

"Not that you can hear me, but if you can, I'm probably boring you to death," Prince Lupin laughed. "I'm sorry. I have nothing to do other than talk, I guess, so that's what I'm doing. I barely even know what I'm saying myself, to be quite honest."

There was a long silence after that, a content silence. Sirius could feel it. It was strange, but he could feel things like that, especially now that all he could do was hear and feel. It was as though he had another sense, one that he wasn't sure if other people could feel.

Perhaps it was just his imagination making up for what he'd lost. That was the most likely explanation, at least. That was always the most likely explanation, his brain making up things he could barely understand.

"Well, we should probably move again soon," Prince Lupin said reluctantly. "It's time to go anyways."

Sirius felt himself moving - being picked up again, and he'd been right, because Prince Lupin's hands weren't like Lily or James's hands. His were smooth, his fingers longer and less worn, born from a life of royalty.

"I'm exhausted," he said quietly. "I keep thinking about Caradoc.”

Sirius was quiet. He had to be. He wanted to ask about Caradoc, but at the same time he wasn't sure he would ask even if he had his voice.

"He was the boy, you know. There was an incident a while back. You might have heard about it." The Prince laughed wryly. "There was a huge scandal of course, and they tried to cover it up the best they could, but it got out anyways."

They were moving through the forest again, and the wind was soft against Sirius. It was that perfect temperature where he felt at ease with himself and the rest of the world, like he might actually belong here.

"I met him at one of the stupid galas. It was almost time to go about finding a suitable girl to marry. I wasn't even sure if I was gay, then, I was just trying to figure out all the politics that I was supposed to understand. I'm awful at it now, I've always been awful at it."

Sirius almost laughed at that - he could feel the laugh inside of him, even though it wasn't possible for it to be reflected on the outside where it would be visible to other people.

"And then there was Caradoc. There was something about him I hadn't felt before, you know? I was... confused."

He paused again.

"I've always thought about appearances so much, but Caradoc seemed to let down his mask for me. We went into the hallway to talk, because we were both so exasperated with the party. Things just...happened. I realized why I never thought anything of the girls. It was obvious, in retrospect."

Prince Lupin sighed.

"He didn't mean much to me, really, not emotionally. The press caught us too soon. I think I could have liked him a lot, but we never got the chance because that's not how our world works."

He fell silent, for a long time, a silence that itched at Sirius and made him feel at ill ease inside his own skin. They moved steadily through the forest, slowing slightly.

"It's all stupid," he murmured. "I keep thinking about him now, though. My parents thought he might be the reason I ran away. I keep wondering where he is, if he got in trouble too."

Another sigh, heavier than the last, and this one tore at him from the inside. He wanted to hug the Prince, to tell him, to talk to him, to say that he deserved a different life than the one he'd been given. That he deserved to live without a mask shadowing him and suppressing his moves.

"Anyways, it doesn't matter now, I guess."

Silence, movement, _living, living, living_.

After a long, long, silence, he spoke again.

"You should be waking up in five days now, at least that's what your brother said."

Sirius twitched back into reality from where he'd been slowly drifting into a daydream. He wanted to stop the Prince, to ask what he'd meant about - his brother? Regulus? What did Regulus have to do with any of this?

His stomach clenched - apparently that was still possible even when he was frozen, and he listened carefully for more, but no more came. It was just more movement and silence.

Finally, they came to another halt.

"We can stay here for the night," Prince Lupin said quietly. "I don't know if you're sleeping. Probably? You're probably always sleeping, anyways, but I need to sleep too. I'll see you in the morning, I guess."

Then the words faded away, replaced solely by the sounds of night. Crickets, mostly, the occasional croak of a frog. There was a bug on Sirius's leg, and he tried to ignore it. The grass was itchy underneath him, his position uncomfortable, and he wanted to shift.

Instead he listened to Prince Lupin shifting beside him, presumably trying to fall asleep.

"I can never sleep," he whispered, laughing quietly to himself. "I love the stars too much. I love being free. I can't believe I didn't run sooner."

Another shift against the ground, rustling quietly.

"I wish you could see the stars right now. They're so bright, they're like tiny flashlights. I think you would like it, especially if you spent as much time as I did cooped up in some house you never wanted to be in. They're so much like freedom. We can see them, wherever we go, wherever we run to. They're always there, Snow Black."

Sirius fell asleep with a smile inside, warming the darkness he was stuck inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all wonderful, just thought I'd put that out there <3


	17. Chapter 17

The next days were filled with much of the same as they had been before. Remus tried to find his way through the forest, Snow Black stayed in his half-dead state, and Remus rambled on about everything that crossed his mind.

Remus felt so free that the words bubbled up inside him without his consent. A stopper taken off, a crown taken away, and suddenly nothing in his life was hidden behind a veiled wall. He just kept talking. He didn't even know what he was saying at this point, only that he was talking and that was _okay_ for the first time in as long as he could remember..

The woods welcomed him. The days passed. He talked. Snow Black didn't move.

He didn’t have perfect track of the time. He wondered vaguely if there was a way to tell exactly by the height of the sun in the sky — the length of the shadows, perhaps. It seemed like something that would be useful to know. As it was, all he could tell was day and night, light and dark, hours that took longer to pass than he’d anticipated. Broken only by his own words.

And he could count days. He knew it was growing closer, and he grew more and more anxious with the passing days, because Snow Black was supposed to be waking up soon. _Would be,_ he told himself. Not _supposed_ to be. _Would_ be. He couldn’t let himself think for a moment that the antidote had failed or that maybe it hadn’t been an antidote at all.

Snow Black _would_ wake up, Remus insisted to the trees as he sat on the ground and stared at the immobile mannequin that was supposed to be a person. _Will_ wake up, he thought, watching the unmoving form that seemed glued to the ground for the rest of eternity.

Remus wasn’t sure what he’d do if Snow Black didn’t wake up. He couldn’t very well leave him lying in the middle of the forest. But what if he was dead? What if Remus had been carrying around a corpse? Surely, he’d have known if Snow Black was dead?

And then he twitched. It started in his left hand - Remus could pinpoint the exact moment the exact second that the tip of his finger jerked, because he'd been carefully watching for hours now, any sign of movement reflected in Remus’s own limbs as he jumped to his feet.

It spread down Snow Black’s arm in a cascade, a domino effect of twitching muscles.

And then, at last, he sat up.

“You’re awake!" Remus yelled out, unable to suppress the excitement in his voice. He wasn’t even sure if Snow Black could hear him yet. His eyes were still closed - some strange porcelain doll that looked eerily asleep, propped up in an uncannily accurate impression of a human.

"Snow Black?" Remus asked hesitantly, wanting to reach out and prod him, to see if he'd react, but he was far too terrified. His instincts were screaming at him to run, but that wasn’t something he could do. "Snow Black, is that you?"

There was a jerking, and then his eyes shot open.

“Prince?” was his first word, aimed directly at Remus, rubbing at his eyes with a wince/ His voice was hoarse and sounded like he'd coated it in a bucket of sand, grating with every word he tried to force out. Weeks asleep would do that to you, it seemed.

He coughed, movements still strangely jerky, and he rubbed his eyes again, staring around at the forest and then coming to rest on Remus.

"What happened? I caught parts of it, but what happened?"

Remus, careful not to dwell on "I caught parts of it," started to explain. From Severus to the apple, from trying to get the antidote to Snow Black's brother, from nearly being caught by castle guards to finding Peter.

Snow Black stared at him for a second, and then his mouth quirked into a tiny smile at one corner, and his eyes fluttered closed, only furthering the eerie facsimile of a doll. Slightly too perfect to be human.

"Do you have any water?" he asked, voice still scratching against itself - like sandpaper, worn down and horribly rocky.

"Yeah, hold on." Remus hurried into the tent to pull out the canteen of water, something he'd been carefully treasuring so as not to let a drop go to waste. He couldn't help the curling tendril of excitement that was spreading through his own limbs, as quickly as the life had spread through Snow Black.

He was alive now, Snow Black was awake, and Remus was no longer alone. Even though Snow Black had technically been with him before, he now had more than just a corpse lying there cold as a board.

He handed the water to Snow Black, who took a drink, arm shaking from disuse, sending droplets of water spilling over his too-red lips and falling to the ground.

"I ran away from the castle," Remus blurted out, staring at Snow Black. "We're both on the run now."

"I know," Snow Black smirked. He leaned back against the tree, tilting his head to the side in a way that somehow presumed his dominance despite the fact that Remus was towering over him, despite the fact that he’d been in a coma for weeks now.

"What?" Remus almost didn't want to ask. He'd found that sometimes it was better to leave things be, not to rip off the veil that he hadn't even known was there.

"I could hear," Snow Black said calmly, looking up at Remus. "I couldn't move or see or speak, but I could hear while I was poisoned.”

"You could - you could hear?" Remus could feel his face blanching without his permission, the white pallor spreading almost as easily as a blush, consuming his face. There was a lump inside him now - was it in his throat? his stomach? His entire body? He wasn't sure. All he knew was that it was hard to talk now, hard to think.

"Calm down," Snow Black said, with far too much calm than the situation merited. He was still leaning casually back, his body curving easily against the tree. "It's fine."

"You - you heard everything I said?" Remus almost didn't want to ask. He didn't want to hear the answer, even though he already knew it. He didn't want this confirmation, for once. Snow Black nodded slowly, not breaking eye-contact, and Remus couldn't seem to break eye contact either, not with the black depths of his eyes that seemed to reach much farther than was actually possible.

"Yeah," he said, and then he gave a tiny laugh that came out hoarse as his words. It was rough against the air. "You talk an awful lot, don't you?"

Remus barely heard him, because his hearing was spinning - was that possible? - and everything came to him in a strangely distorted echo, sounds that tipped and spilled and didn't form coherent words.

Snow Black had heard everything he said. Snow Black heard everything he said. Everything about running away, about the Incident. Every stray thought that crossed his mind.

Every truth about him that he'd kept locked inside his body, bouncing inside him and finally spilling out to what he'd thought was the open forest. And now Snow Black knew them all. Every word. Every moment. Every emotion.

Snow Black knew it all.

Now it wasn't just Remus's hearing that was spinning. It was his vision, clouding at the edges, a buzzing filling the air, and now his entire world was spinning, and he couldn't stay standing for a second longer.

He sank to the ground, now as weak as Snow Black — who he couldn't even see anymore because the world was entirely gone from his line of sight.

There was just one thought, piercing his mind. He wasn't sure if it was the same one, bouncing around his mind, or if it was a million of the same, generating every second then vanishing as quickly as they came.

_He knows. He knows. He knows. He knows._

Remus had never felt so torn open. He had always been a rational person, never wallowing in misery, taking worst case scenarios and putting them into perspective, but now...

Now there was no worst case scenario, because his life was the worst case scenario.

_He knows. He knows. He knows._

"Hey." There was a soft voice that just managed to break through to him, pebbly rough but soft at the same time. "Keep breathing, okay? Everything is going to go back to normal, all you have to do is keep breathing.”

Remus couldn't keep tracy of time anymore, because that was spinning too. But finally, the world clicked into place, a product of the pebbly smooth voice and some work of chance.

Snow Black was sitting there, eyes doused in concern. Almost like he actually cared.

"Hey," he said again. "It's okay. Nothing bad is going to happen."

"You know. You know." It was all Remus could say, because it was still the only thing he was thinking. He couldn't get it out of his mind, no matter how hard he tried. Even speaking didn't rip it from his body - it was still there, trapped and determined to haunt him.

"You didn't say that much," Snow Black frowned, reaching out in an apparent effort towards comfort, but Remus jerked away.

"Didn't say that much?" he asked, and he wasn't sure if the hysterics in his voice were real or just a product of his clouded ears. "I was talking the entire time I thought you were out, and you know it. You know it because - because you heard it all."

There was a long pause where Snow Black didn't move. He didn't try to reach out again, and he didn't say anything else. He just sat back and considered Remus carefully. Finally, he began to talk.

"When I was younger, my brother was my idol. It wasn't supposed to be like that, because I was the older one, but I looked up to him."

Remus froze, frowning at the ground, not quite understanding what Snow Black was saying.

"I looked up to him. But then he became an assassin. He was suddenly shrouded in mystery, and he didn't have time to talk to me anymore. I still wanted to be his brother, but he pushed me away. I was crushed. I still am. When I heard that he was the one who saved my life..." he trailed off and stared at the ground.

"What are you doing?" Remus whispered. He couldn't believe the things he was hearing, certain his ears were still playing tricks on him.

"I grew up in a similar place to you," Sirius said calmly, still staring directly at the ground. "They didn't approve of anything abnormal. They wanted perfection, especially my father. But he only wanted the perfection for himself, really, and he hated what other people saw me as. He didn't want somebody usurping him."

"Snow Black..." Remus said, trailing off, uncertain what he'd intended to say when he started the sentence, only that he wanted to halt the flow of words.

"That's not my name." He continued as though he hadn't heard, but he obviously had because of what he was saying. "My name is Sirius. Sirius Black. I've been known as Snow Black for as long as I can remember, did you know that? The beautiful one, the son of Sir Black. I hate it. Why should I hate it - I'm beautiful, aren't I? That isn't something I should hate, but I do. You were right."

Remus could feel himself gaping, and finally when Sirius's words had slowed to a trickle, he looked up.

"Why are you doing this?" he whispered, looking up at Sirius. "Why did you say all that?"

“I’m making things even so you’ll stop panicking,” he smiled softly. "I know about you, so now you get to know about me.“

"You - you -" Remus couldn't get words out.

"Look, Prince."

"That's not my name," Remus burst out. "It's Remus."

There was another silence, longer this time, and when Remus got the courage to meet Sirius's eyes again, he was greeted with another faint smile.

"Okay. Remus, then. We're all messed up, you know that, right? It's fine. There's nothing especially shocking about you. No offense, but you're just another person.“

Remus just stared at him still, not saying anything.

"It's okay," Sirius repeated. "Everything is. We're on the run now anyways, so our family doesn't matter. Nothing from our past really matters anymore. You aren't a prince, I'm not the most beautiful person in the kingdom, everything is perfect."

And Remus couldn't help it. Maybe it was slightly hysterical, but he couldn't help it, because the laugh filled him up without his consent, all the way to the top of his body. He laughed and laughed, and then Sirius was joining in. He wasn't even sure what he was laughing about.

"We're on the run," he choked out between bursts of laughter, as irregular as the pattern of wind as it danced through the trees. "We're on the run and we have absolutely no clue what we're doing."

Sirius doubled over, clutching at his stomach and laughing in a way that looked almost painful.

"We're on the run," he echoed, and his laugh was so full, ringing through the entire forest it seemed. It was still slightly hoarse, but it was torn from his throat, loud and raucous and joyous, something that you couldn't hold back.

Remus laughed like he couldn't remember ever laughing in his life. This had been building for years, he thought vaguely, a sum of all the laughs he'd held back while listening to the maids’ stories late at night, a compilation of incredulous laughter at the antics of noble people who were only allowed to talk in vague riddles. He laughed, at his life, at the pathetic situation he was in.

He laughed with panic, because he'd thrown his entire life away, everything he'd been working towards for the past however many years he'd been alive. He laughed because he was sitting with another famous person, the most beautiful one in the kingdom. He laughed because they were both being chased by guards, because there was a strange likelihood that they'd be caught at some point or another.

"We have no clue what we're doing in the forest," Sirius choked out before another laugh tore from him, and Remus was certain he'd never felt this happy in his life. Something had broken free. Some block that had been in place since birth, something ingrained in him from the hundreds of books and etiquette rules. He was feeling. He was alive. Sirius knew, _Sirius knew_ , and that was okay because he was alive for the first time in his life.

When their laughter had finally abated and subsided into tiny random bursts, Remus sat up and faced Sirius, who was still smiling like his face would split. Carefree. Happy.

Remus had never felt more connected to somebody, although perhaps that wasn't saying much considering the history of his life as a noble. But Sirius, that was how he worked. Not holding back. Running away.

The two of them, running away, determined to escape a past that had haunted them for the entirety of their lives.

The two of them, set free at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand another chapter :) thank y'all for being wonderful!!


	18. Chapter 18

When Sirius woke up the next morning, the forest was already flooded with the light of the sun. It was a lighter yellow than usual, the color of morning, and the dew was sharp against the floor of the forest, making pools on the leaves and dripping from the pine trees.

Remus was still asleep next to him, face buried in his pillow, and Sirius wondered how he was able to sleep like that without suffocating.

Remus stirred next to him, almost like he could sense Sirius was awake — although Sirius was almost certain he hadn't made a noise. With a yawn, Remus sat upright, stretching his arms high above his head and staring at Sirius.

"You're already awake," he commented, rolling over.

"Yeah. I think we should try to find the group of tramps from before. We’re not much use on our own.”

"How do you suggest we do that?” Remus asked. He yawned again, closing his eyes as he did so, and Sirius did his very best not to stare, even though his eyes were pulled that way by some unknown force.

"Don't ask me," Sirius snorted, rolling his eyes. "That's your job to figure out, I'm not the mastermind behind all this. Where are all your genius ideas when we need them?"

"Who ever said I had any ideas?" Remus asked, raising one eyebrow in disbelief. “I’ve got no clue where they’d be.”

"Well, where would they go if they'd split up and were planning to meet again?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Remus said, and the frustration was evident from his voice to the way his fingers twitched against the ground. "You were with them for longer than I was, anyway."

"Well was there some place they always went?"

There was a long silence, where Remus studied the rivets in the ground from where he’d slept and tried his very best to think of an answer. And then it hit him. Clicked inside his brain.

"The market."

"What?"

"The market, they might be at the market. That's where they traded things in. We might be able to find them there."

Sirius stared at him, and there was that tiny crease above his eyebrows, right between them, a groove in his forehead.

"Isn't that where Snape is? He wants to kill me, and he'd turn you in if it meant he got money."

"Yeah, well, we don't have many other choices," Remus snapped, and he scraped up a handful of dirt, trying to ignore the way it stuck under his fingernails unpleasantly.

"Do we really need them?"

"What do you think?" Remus said, and perhaps it was his lack of food that was making him snappy, but he was so annoyed at the moment, like Sirius was contradicting every thing he said purely for the sake of it. "Do you think you're going to survive like this? In the wild? Do you have any clue whatsoever what you're doing?" He threw down the dirt and watched it cloud around him, and now the dirt under his fingernails was starting to bother them.

"Hey," Sirius said, the line furrowing deeper into his forehead. "Calm down. I'm just looking at the different options, okay?"

Remus sighed and looked down at the ground. "This was a mistake."

"What?"

"Running away was a mistake."

"For heaven's sake," Sirius muttered under his breath, and he leaned back against the tree again, throwing an arm up to cover his eyes.

"What?" Remus snapped, and perhaps he was just looking for an excuse to get himself riled up, but he couldn't help it. "What makes you think you have any right to comment on my life?" All the goodwill he'd felt towards Sirius yesterday had vanished in the space of less than a second. Now all he wanted to do was curl up underneath silk sheets and pretend to be noble.

"Can you stop wallowing for one second?" Sirius shot back, dropping his arm, the crease now heavy in his forehead. "Every time things get even the slightest bit difficult, you decide you want to run back to your stupid castle. Can you just try to do something hard for once, instead of running for safety?"

Remus stared at him, dumbstruck, feeling as though he'd been slapped in the face, and almost wishing he had because that - that would be better.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me,” Sirius spat out, looking away. “You can’t take anything that’s a challenge, can you?”

“Sure I can,” Remus shot back, nerves firing, yelling words, letting them tumble out of his mouth before he could approve them or even have the slightest chance of taking them back. “You’re the one who didn’t even want to try going to the market, you can’t be blaming me for this. Really, it’s down to you.”

“Fine!” Sirius shot back, and his voice didn’t echo off the trees like Remus might have expected. Instead it was swallowed by the forest, drawn into the canopy of trees and the tall lines of forest scenery. It was absorbed, and it fizzled out into nothingness. “Then let’s go to the market. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter if we both die.”

“Fine,” Remus said. They both stood there in the middle of the forest, staring at each other.

There was a long, heavy pause. Then —

“You have no idea which way the market is, do you?” Sirius asked, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. Remus stared at him. He turned to look around the forest, to assess the possible directions, and then he turned back to Sirius.

“I…”

And then Sirius started laughing, heavy and full, the kind of laughter that could fill up an entire room — if not a forest — and Remus couldn’t help it. He joined in, clutching at his stomach, and all ill-will between them vanished as quickly as it had come.

“We’re both absolute _idiots,”_ Sirius choked out, still doubled over with laughter. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing.”

“Sorry I yelled at you too,” Remus laughed, unable to see anything wrong with the situation. “I didn’t mean it.”

They flopped to the ground and stared hopelessly at each other.

“What are we going to do?”

“Should probably try to find a way out of this godawful forest,” Sirius remarked drily, staring around at the trees, still rustling ceaselessly It didn’t seem to matter if there was wind, because the trees were always moving, talking quietly in their own language.

“Probably,” Remus agreed, staring around him. “This world is a complete and utter mess.”

“I don’t know if it’s the world or just us,” Sirius commented. Then he paused. “Nah, it’s definitely the world.”

“Definitely the world,” Remus agreed with a sigh. They sat there in the dirt, staring at each other. Remus’s eyes were so strangely amber, beautiful in his own way. Sirius looked around him, at the shapes of the forest that he felt like he’d known for more years than he could count. Remus was strange, Sirius had thought so from the beginning. So unwilling to live as a noble, so eager to run away, but so quick to change his mind.

So strangely dedicated to bringing Sirius back to life, but then willing to sacrifice him.

Remus felt like a contradiction of the highest order, like he barely understood who he was. And yet somehow, he could laugh more raucously than most people Sirius knew, and he could tell stories and talk about his thoughts more fluidly than anybody.

“Hey Remus?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember when I was unconscious and you kept talking to me?”

Remus buried his face in his hands, hiding from the world. He liked to hide, Sirius mused, liked to stay away from the rest of the world. Maybe that made things easier for him. Maybe that was something Sirius should try. Perhaps it would make everything simpler if he wasn’t so forward about facing absolutely everything the world threw at him with the vigor he couldn’t seem to quench.

“Yeah,” Remus muttered, muffled into his palms. “I remember.”

“You can tell me things like that, you know,” Sirius told him. “I don’t mind it. You don’t have to hide yourself all the time, because I’m really not going to judge you, believe it or not. I’m about the last person who’s in a place to judge you at the moment.”

Remus spread his fingers slightly, keping his face hidden but letting enough room for one eye to peek through the gaps.

“Like what?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Sirius shrugged. “Only I want you to know you can talk to me, if you ever feel like it.”

“Okay,” Remus said finally. He let out a breath that Sirius hadn’t noticed him take in, and everything felt magnified because it was only the two of them and the forest. “I appreciate it. And you know the same always goes for you.”

“Fine,” Sirius said with a laugh. “We should probably start trying to find a way out of this forest in any case, otherwise we’re going to end up starving to death, and that would just be depressing.”

“How do you intend to find your way out of this?” Sirius asked, gesturing around the wide swathe of trees that seemed to sweep over the entirety of the earth. “We have no idea where we are, no clue what direction we’re trying to go in. We don’t even know where the boundaries of the forest are, do we? It could stretch for miles and miles.”

“That’s not true,” Remus said suddenly. “We know the castle is the north boundary and the market is the south. So if we pick north or south, it shouldn’t be too long.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then,” Remus mused slowly, “Things are about to get a lot more interesting.”

“Right,” Sirius said, taking a deep breath. He held his arms spread wide and turned to lift an eyebrow at Remus. “I’m not making this decision, because we both know I’ll mess it up royally. Which way?”

Remus looked at him, lifted an eyebrow, closed his eyes, and spun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have I ever mentioned how much I hate this fic lmao
> 
> sooo this chapter isn't the best but I'm too tired to make it better, sorryyyy! it's getting very close to being done and tbh I can't wait


	19. Chapter 19

It was two days before they finally started to near the edge of the forest. Sirius could tell immediately they were close, from the way the forest lightened, the way that greater and greater splotches of blue showed through the gaps in the leaves.

The closer they got, the faster they walked, until they were practically running through the forest, kicking up pine needles and leaves behind them, tearing through the trees. The light was spilling in golden now, the rays of sun in uninterrupted patches until everything Sirius could see was golden — golden sun, golden leaves, Remus's hair reflected golden.

They burst through at the edge of the forest and found themselves at a field only a little ways away from a road, where cars were whooshing past with a promise Sirius never thought he'd see in cars. He was apprehensive, drawing back and staring at the road warily. He was happy to be free from the forest, of course, but being free had other implications too.

Orion, for example. Snape. People who wanted him dead, and would stop at next to nothing when they wanted to hunt him down.

Sirius wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that, with the knowledge that every movement he made was being carefully tracked. He felt like prey, hunted, scrambling into corners and lurking in the depths of the woods. This was supposed to be freedom. This was supposed to be release, the breath of fresh air he'd yearned for, but he almost felt more trapped than when he'd lived at Grimmauld Place, even though the world stretched on in every possible direction.

He stayed on the border of the forest, watching Remus, who was staring gleefully up at the sun.

"We made it!" he called back to Sirius, who nodded in slow response, feeling the tug of his hair. It was heavy and knotted, probably filled with leaves, the occasional twig. He'd become like the rest of the group now, as unruly and unpredictable, just as wild, and he wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

"Yeah," he affirmed, looking out at the road. Their path forward from here was reasonably clear, to Sirius at least. They'd follow the road where it led them, and then to honor Remus's wish, they would go to the market where they'd try to find the group of tramps who had saved him.

But he wasn't sure if he could do that. He couldn't go on living knowing that Orion was still out there. He couldn’t run away with that knowledge. It would hang over his head, every move he made, leaden weights shackled to his limbs.

"Come on," Remus beckoned, starting towards the road. Evidently he'd had the same idea as Sirius.

"I'm coming," Sirius yelled back, heaving a great sigh and staring out towards the road. "Just a minute."

He looked back towards the forest one last time, trying to memorize the patterns of the trees, the trails they'd forged and the branches they'd broken to make their way. He wondered how easy it would be for somebody to find that path and follow them all the way here. He wondered how obvious they would be, how exposed out on the road.

He wondered if he was just being a coward.

Out of all people, he would've expected Remus to be the one running now, because he stood by what he'd said earlier. Remus seemed the type to vanish when things got too difficult, to run back to his life of luxury where his worries were ridiculously simple.

But Sirius didn't want that. He just wanted to be safe. Was that too much to ask for?

He trudged after Remus, not bothering to hurry - he'd catch up eventually, and he didn't feel like talking at the moment. When they were finally walking side by side, Remus slowed and looked over at him.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly.

Sirius looked over at him, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Don't pretend, you've got that look on your face. Something's bothering you and I can't figure out what it is. What's wrong?"

"I..." he trailed off, and then he looked over at Remus again. He'd already spilled enough secrets, and he didn't see what harm it would do to spill one more. "I want to kill Orion."

"Me too," Remus agreed. "After what he did to you, anybody would want to kill him."

"No," Sirius amended. "I don't just want to. I'm going to kill Orion."

"You're - you're what? You're going to... to kill him?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, and saying it only served to heighten his conviction. It was in his head now, and it would probably stay there, lurking in the back of his mind for the rest of eternity if he didn't get it out now. "I'm going to murder him. I can't live being hunted like we're doing now, Remus. That's not how I want to live, and it isn't something I'd be able to stand."

"Okay," Remus said after a long pause. "Kill him."

"Well." Sirius took a deep breath and stared at the road. "Then this is where our paths split, I guess."

Remus stopped and turned around, frowning. "What?"

"You go to the market and find everyone else, they'll take you in easily enough. I'm going to go find Orion."

"Don't be ridiculous," Remus insisted. He was still frowning at Sirius in that strange way, like he was missing something. "I'm coming with you."

"What?" Now Sirius was the one standing their slack-jawed, staring back at Remus. "What are you talking about?"

"You think I'm going to let you meander back to Orion on your own? Well you're wrong, because that's absolutely ridiculous. He tried to kill you once and almost succeeded, and I'm not about to let it happen again."

"Why do you care?" Sirius asked, staring at Remus's earnest expression and wondering when anybody had ever volunteered to do something like this for him. He couldn't remember a time.

"I'm your friend, idiot, of course I care. Let's go kill Orion."

"I don't need your protection," Sirius insisted.

"Well then maybe I need yours!" Remus burst out. "Look, I'm not leaving here without you, so you can either argue with me for another couple of hours, or you can do us both a favor and spare us the time and pain. Got it?"

Sirius stared at him. He didn't understand. He looked back at the woods and wondered on the way Remus had spent days carrying around his frozen body, wondered at the way he'd laughed and smiled, and wondered if it was possible that Remus actually did care about him.

"You really care?" he asked, because for some reason he had to make certain this was actually true and not just happening inside his head. "You actually want to help me?"

Remus took another deep breath and closed his eyes.

"Sirius, for Merlin's sake, of course I care about you. Why do you find that so hard to believe?"

"I dunno," Sirius muttered, staring at the ground. He felt a hand brushing feather-light over his elbow and looked up to see Remus standing there, close to him, close, close.

"Hey. Look at me."

Sirius did, because it was the easiest course of action.

"Listen here. I care about you, because you're funny and ridiculous and you ran away from home. I just like you, okay? And I'm going to go kill your father with you, so instead of questioning me and telling me not to come, how about you just thank me?"

"Th-thank you," Sirius stammered. He lowered his eyes because the eye contact had become a little too much for him to take at one time. "Thank you. For the record, I care about you too."

"That's great," Remus said with an amused grin. "Now the sooner we get going, the sooner we can set this whole debacle behind us."

Sirius nodded and looked back out towards the road, where cars were whizzing under an underpass without a care in the world, shooting puffs of exhaust into the air behind them, leaving a trail told in smoke, one that vanished after only a few minutes in the air. He watched them travel onwards, barely seeing each destination before passing it by and continuing on.

"Okay," he said, turning back to Remus. "Left or right?"

* * *

They had no idea where they were going, something that set Remus on edge but something that Sirius seemed to find incredibly amusing. Every time they came to a fork in the road he would grin and make a joke, ask if they should split up. He seemed to have no end to the amusement that came from being lost just outside of a forest.

“Sirius, we should really try to figure out where we are. Ask somebody, or _something.”_

Sirius would just laugh at him and remind him that they were the two most wanted people in the whole kingdom and that asking for help was about the worst idea he’d ever come up with. So they trudged onwards, keeping a great enough distance from the road that they wouldn’t be recognized or anything else of the sort.

They kept walking, not quite sure what they were looking for. Sirius claimed that from the market he’d easily be able to find the way back to the Black Family Manor, which was their ultimate goal.

Although Remus had agreed so easily to it at first, he was starting to have second thoughts, as one usually did when they agreed to planning a murder.

He didn’t mention it to Sirius, because Sirius was still entirely set on it. There was something about the way he walked, about how supremely confident he looked, that told Remus there would be no going back on this one. Sirius was in it for the long haul.

It wasn’t like he could deny that Orion deserved it, and as long as he was alive he was also a danger to Sirius. It was only that Remus had never partaken in helping with a murder before, and he wasn’t the keenest on starting now. Maybe it was partially because of the wonderings at the back of his mind that he couldn’t seem to get rid of. Wonderings about if he went back. If, after all this, he went to reclaim his place as the prince.

Not that that was a likely scenario, but Remus couldn’t help but think about it.

It was only a day before things started to look familiar to Remus. He knew the area around the market better than most people, because there was enough bartering in royal families that he came here quite often. He knew this road, had ridden down it himself many a day.

“I think we’re close,” Remus said quietly when he got farther down the road. “I think I recognize where we are. Near the market, that is.”

“We’re near the market?” Sirius asked urgently, turning to stare at Remus with eyes that were wide with an emotion Remus couldn’t quite place, so he just nodded back. Sirius laughed aloud, and his eyes were definitely alight now. “Who would’ve figured? Maybe I do have an internal compass after all. You laughed at me.”

“Shut up,” Remus muttered resentfully, rolling his eyes and facing straight ahead. The market was sprawling out in front of them, bustling with people who were there to barter, to buy goods they hadn’t known they wanted until they heard the loud yelling of peddlers, trained in their art of convincing people they needed far more than they actually did. “Let’s go, and _stop_ talking.”

He was half-kidding. There was something about Sirius’s easy words, the way he granted them so easily, with his jokes that made the situation seem so much lighter than it actually was. It made it feel like the market was so perfectly normal, like they were going to trade goods per normal, like this wasn’t a mission where they were on a getaway.

They reached the market with hoods drawn low. Ordinarily it would look sketchy, but the market was full of strange people, and mostly they were left to their own.When Remus saw the sides of the marketplace vendors, he flinched instinctively. There were posters tacked up on every stall, painted pictures that advertised both their faces, side by side, with varying degrees of ware.

“Hey, it’s us!” Sirius exclaimed happily, nudging Remus in the side. “Look at you, you’re much better on paper than real life.”

“Shut up for once, will you?” Remus muttered, grinning as he studied the Wanted posters, tacked with huge money awards underneath. “Otherwise I’ll turn you in and collect my million dollar prize, how would you like that?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Sirius gasped with mock horror, clutching at his chest. “Remus. I trusted you, you know. I trusted you with my life, and this is how you’re going to repay me for that? I’m horrified. I can’t believe you would do such a thing to me.”

“Shut up and let’s go see if we can get through the market without being noticed.”

They made their way through the market, wending their way slowly through the crowd of people who were all talking with each other. Like a group of time bombs that was waiting for a nudge too much, a slip of the cloak to reveal who they really were. That’s all it would take, a tug at the fabric that went just wrong, and his entire fabricated disguise would come crashing down. It would be so simple, so devastating, so _simple._

They made their way past Snape’s stall. The door was propped open slightly and the smell and smoke of potions curled out from inside.

Remus peeked around the edge into the shop to find it deserted.

“We should go,” Sirius muttered in his ear. “The longer we stay here, the greater chance we’ll be found, and I want nothing to do with that. I need to get rid of Orion before I risk getting caught.”

“Right,” Remus said quickly. They made their way past quickly. “Where to now?”

“Orion,” Sirius snarled. “He’s not going to rest until I’m dead, and I really don’t intend to die.”

“Sirius…” Remus trailed off, glancing around him quickly and squinting back at Sirius. “Are you sure this is the best idea? I mean, we aren’t exactly equipped to kill Orion, are we?”

“I’ve picked up a thing or two,” Sirius said, shrugging it off. “My brother was training to be an assassin. It’ll be fine. Besides, there are two of us.”

“And he has your entire family behind him, along with a lot of other assassins, I’m guessing. Wouldn’t it be better for us to run away instead? Killing him is only going to bring more people onto your tail. Running — now, that way they’ll forget about us eventually.”

“You think Orion’s going to forget?” Sirius asked, narrowing his eyes at Remus. “Evidently, you haven’t lived with him for the same amount of time as I have. Well, let me tell you something. He won’t forget. He won’t give up. He won’t stop until he’s the prettiest man in the kingdom, and unfortunately, I’ve taken that spot.”

“Fine,” Remus said, breathing out heavily. “Fine, then what are we waiting here for?”

“Look,” Sirius said, studying his face closely, “I can tell you’re having second thoughts. Not that I’m surprised, but —”

“Shut _up,”_ Remus hissed, He was tired of thinking about this and rethinking about this, tired of the throne being the center of his universe. He didn’t want to think, for once.

“No, listen to me. If you’re in, you have to be _all_ in. If you’re having doubts, you have to go. I can’t have this being messed up. I don’t want you to ruin your life for me.”

Remus stared at him. He looked surprisingly earnest, a sharp contrast to the laughing person who’d poked fun at every split in the road, at every time he’d stumbled over a tree. Instead, he looked like the person who’d spilled his life story to level the playing field. The one who didn’t care what Remus had told him while he was supposedly unconscious.

“I appreciate it,” Remus said quietly, “But I can’t go back. I’ll spend my whole life second guessing.”

“You might do that anyway,” Sirius said, evenly, not like he was blaming Remus. Merely stating the facts.

“What?”

“It seems like you don’t really know what you’re doing, to be honest. Being Prince doesn’t give you many options, but to be quite frank, committing murder doesn’t leave you with many options either.”

“Well, what about you?”

“What about me?” Sirius laughed. “I’m not going to go after formal education or a job, Remus. This is it for me. I’m going to be on the run for a while now. Maybe I’ll fly across the ocean and get out of here, but my options aren’t going to be open for quite a long time.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Would you be?” Sirius asked. “You’re really the one we have to figure out right now. Your life is hanging in the balance. If you come with me, you’re cutting yourself off.”

“I don’t care,” Remus said decisively. “I don’t _care._ I’m going to do it, and I’m done being royal. But —”

“No, see?” Sirius bit out, frowning at him. “That _but._ You can’t come with me when you’re still having second thoughts about all this.”

“I can help people while I’m a Prince,” Remus said quietly.

“Ah,” Sirius said. He gave Remus a small nod. “You have morals.”

“Yeah,” Remus said quietly.

“You shouldn’t come with me,” Sirius said again.

“Yeah,” Remus said. “No. For _fuck’s_ sake, what am I supposed to choose? I want to help people, but I don’t want to be Prince. I want to run away, but I don’t want to give up the power that I was born into, because I could do good here.”

“Great dilemma,” Sirius said, sounding amused as always. “You want to be depressed your whole life? The castle awaits.”

“But —”

“Remus, listen to me. There are ways to help people that don’t include being King and torturing yourself.”

“No, you don’t understand! I don’t want the responsibility but I think I could help, I really do.”

“Look,” Sirius said with a sigh. “I can’t wait forever on this. I’m going now, and you have to make up your mind before I go.”

Remus stared at him, feeling more hopeless than he’d felt in a very long time. They were just outside of where the market reached, a range far enough away that the chatter and bustle had faded down, but close enough that he could still see the tops of stalls, framed against the towering green of the forest.

“I’ll see you some time later, maybe,” Sirius said gently. He smiled at Remus, lips tight, the kind of smile that was desperately trying to hide a sadness deeper down. And then he turned his back and began to walk. Away. Away. Away. Away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My hatred for this story grows with every chapter I write heh heh ugh I might just end it soon...probably one or two more chapters?


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter!!

Remus got three steps. Three steps before things seemed to click in his head.

Sirius was all he had. After everything, with his family who only cared for the picture of him — _Sirius_ saw beyond the face. He laughed at ridiculous things, didn’t seem to care when he had to camp in the middle of the woods, and he still seemed to like Remus after all the words he'd spoken without knowing they'd be received.

If he went back now, his visions would always be stuck on Sirius, on the life he could’ve had. And like that — like _that,_ he’d be no use to the people of the kingdom. Besides, his parents were fair, even though they weren’t exactly loving. They knew what the kingdom needed more than he ever had.

They would be able to bring up a new King that could do real good.

Remus couldn’t go back. He knew it, in that one second, that one burst of realization.

This felt like a turning point, a merging of his two minds. A coalescing. A decision that, for once, felt like it might even stick.

“Sirius!”

He turned around to find Sirius already staring at him, as though he’d been waiting for Remus to change his mind. A question was written across his face. Remus answered.

“I’m not going with you to kill your father,” he said quietly. “I can’t kill someone, even if he might — might deserve it. But I’m not going back to the castle.”

“Thank god,” Sirius said, letting out a breath of something that seemed like it must be relief. “I don’t know why you were so set on going back when you obviously didn’t want to be anywhere near the castle.”

Remus didn’t bother to answer. He had a feeling Sirius _did_ know, that he understood the turmoil flooding him every day of his life.

“Anyways,” Sirius said quietly. “I’m running away after this. After he’s dead, I’m getting as far away from here as I possibly can.

* * *

Remus waited near the market. He was still holding out a near-impossible hope that he might find the group of people from before — Lily, James, Marlene… He hovered near the edge of the forest, where the trees were the thinnest and light still poured through the canopy persistently. He couldn’t help himself when he took a step further into the trees, feeling the crunch of leaves underfoot as he did so.

It was about ten minutes before he heard a crackling that sounded out of place — a minute further than that before he realized why.

He’d been standing stalk still, not moving a foot, and the leaves had crunched. He looked around him, feeling like a predator, searching out whatever had broken the leaves like that.

It was then that he saw it — a tiny figure, darting through the trees and hopping from root to root so as not to make noise, landing on patches of moss in an expert way. But Remus was determined not to let them get away, whoever it was, because this was his last chance before he ran.

“Who’s there?” he hissed into the trees, and the figure froze. “Who are you?”

The leaves of the bush he was behind quivered, the top of his head poking out, as though he was assessing the situation. And then he froze.

“Prince? S’that you?”

“…Peter?”

Remus froze, watching as the boy scampered towards him — he still moved the same, reckless as though he had had a tail to balance him out, running low to the ground.

“You made it away from them, then!” Peter squeaked out. “We weren’t sure you would. Where’s Snow Black, did they get him?”

“Sirius?” Remus asked, and he remembered that nobody else knew what had happened to them. “No, he woke up. He’s going to kill his father now, because he doesn’t want to live while that threat is still there.”

Peter whistled low under his breath.

“Well, you should come back to the campsite,” Peter said excitedly. “They’ll go crazy if they know you two are still alive. We had bets on how long you’d last.”

“You found everyone else?” Remus asked.

“Hmm? Aye, of course, we have a million plans for if we get busted. We met up half an hour after the guards started chasing us. You outran them then, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Remus said. “Can you take me to see everyone else?”

“Aye, follow me,” Peter said, and then he was off through the forest. Remus followed after him, and remembered how it felt to run from the castle, to run and run and run. Through the trees, over rocks, around stumps, under branches, _run, run, run._

And then Peter came to a sudden stop next to a clump of trees.

“Guess who it is!” he called out, and then came Lily and James and Marlene and Dorcas and Frank and Alice, all following close behind.

There were choruses of his name yelling out, and then he was explaining the whole story all over again, how he’d thought Sirius was asleep but he actually heard, how they camped out in the forest with no idea what they were doing, how they’d wanted to find the gang but it had been near impossible to. And lastly, how Sirius was now off to kill his father.

“Well, we have to go find him, aye?” Lily said, looking around at them all, and they chorused their agreement. “We have to make sure he doesn’t mess it up somehow.

So that’s how they ended up running to the Black family Manor, just as rain started to fall from the sky. They got there in what felt like no time at all to find Sirius standing there looking grim, rain falling heavily and swirling around his feet in a cloud of red.

“Sirius?”

“I did it,” he whispered, turning back slightly, rain shaking from his hair as he did so. “I did it. I killed him. I didn’t think I’d be able to, but…” he trailed off, as though he wasn’t sure what to say, and Remus looked at him with concern written all across the lines of his face.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “More than. He’s gone.” He looked strangely empty as he said it, but almost satisfied. Relieved, in a way. Everyone else was cheering behind them, dancing in the rain and lifting their arms up to the heavens.

“Where are you going now?” Remus whispered,

“I'm going to run away,” Sirius whispered back. They were standing close now, close enough to hear each other over the relentless pounding of the rain around them. “Come with me. We’ll go somewhere else.”

“I —”

“Can’t? Why not? Because you’re the _Prince?_ You have a duty?”

Remus looked back at him meekly, closing his eyes against the onslaught of rain.

“You have one life, Remus. Don’t spend it being miserable. Run away with me.”

“It’s not that —

“Simple? It can be, if you let it.”

“Stop finishing my sentences,” Remus hissed, and Sirius laughed, that deep roaring chuckle of his.

“It’s almost like we’re soulmates,” Sirius laughed, and something about that triggered something in Remus’s memory.

“You know, when you were first poisoned and we asked that Snape man what the antidote was, and he said the only thing that would save you was a kiss from your soulmate. James thought I had to be your soulmate. They were convinced that I had to kiss you if I wanted to wake you up.” He laughed, throwing his head back to let the rain pepper his face. Laughing was easier than facing these decisions.

He felt a draw towards this man who had run away from his life and done the thing Remus had always longed to do, who laughed loudly instead of composedly, who ran his fingers through unevenly cut hair and tried to steal from Princes in the dead of night.

Who posed as a guest at a ball and fought his father with a sword in hand and a smile on his lips.

At that moment, Remus had not a care in the world if they were soulmates, and not a care in the world that he was a Prince Lupin, and that this was the runaway Snow Black.

Right now, they were Remus and Sirius, standing in the rain and staring at each other while all their friends danced in the background. This wasn’t Snow Black, this was _Sirius_ , leaning closer and whispering, “Do you think I could have that kiss now?”

This was Remus, leaning back in and resting his arms on the rain sodden shoulders, stroking his fingers over the porcelain skin that was distorted from the rain.

This was them, fighting against the odds, pools of blood and water swirling around their feet as they kissed like their lives depended on it.

 _Run away,_ Sirius’s voice rang in his ears. _Simple? It can be, if you let it. Don’t spend it on being miserable._

In his mind, the decision was already made, and he poured every syllable of his unspoken thoughts into their kiss, exhilaration and terror and hint of blood.

In a fairytale, they sky would split into a rainbow, but instead it loomed over them, stormy and black and unceasing, washing streams of blood down the gutter.

_Run away. Run away._

_Simple? It can be, if you let it._

_Run away._

_Simple?_

_It can be, if you let it._

So they ran, hand in hand, the group of tramps behind them, leaving red footprints in their wake. Above them the clouds threatened black as night, and below they were laughing, teeth flashing white as snow.

 

For the first time in his life, Remus didn't look back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh I had to finish this story so I made this the last chapter (and I’m really sorry if it’s unsatisfactory, my brain was being an idiot supreme) but I hope you enjoyed it!! Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments along the way, you people are wonderful!


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